Deepanshu Gupta's video: Rajat Kapoor - Cinematic Marriage

The above two 'still' shots are from two different yet similar films of the 'Auteur' Rajat Kapoor. The first one is from the closing shot of the film 'Mixed Doubles(2005)' & the last one is from the opening shot of the film 'Kadakh(2020)'. Both film thematically talks about the immoral tale of a marriage. Both central character share the same name, i.e. Sunil. The first film ends with the husband (Ranvir Shorey, *Rajat's own Marcello Mastroianni*) asking his wife for sharing a cup of tea. The last film starts with husband (Ranvir Shorey, again) having a cup of tea alone. As usual, both films are stylized with a lot of humor and absurd troops which makes them a typical Kapoor's film. Nonetheless, what makes these two films exciting pairs or couples? Notice composition of both shots carefully you'll see characters are framed within a frame. Especially in the later film 'Kadakh', you'll see we've shown the reflection of Ranvir's character in a frame within frames. Also notice how the lighting of the composition changes when Sunil disappears disappear from the frame, it gets darker. This pretty much sets the mood of the film, as this is the darkest comedy film made by Rajat Kapoor. This is a subtle hint of how this film is nothing but eventually film about a film, in-fact if you've seen both films you'll realize that both films are nothing but a cinematic married couple. PS: Also how one can forget the work of Kapoor's all-time collaborator, the production designer 'Meenal Agarwal', it'll need another post to appreciate details of her work, especially in 'Kadakh'. I think Kadakh is a great film to study mise-en-scene in films. Song: 'Sambhal Zara' from Kadakh by Sagar Desai & Hussain Haidry.