4 Indian road movies that have truly captured the Indian landscape

In the cinematic universe, out of all the genres that we can enjoy, the ‘road movie’ is one which takes the viewers on a virtual journey, savouring the very spirit of adventure that exists in the minds and souls of all human beings.

In the cinematic universe, out of all the genres that we can enjoy, the ‘road movie’ is one which takes the viewers on a virtual journey, savouring the very spirit of adventure that exists in the minds and souls of all human beings. In the wide spectrum of Indian movies, there are innumerable road movies encompassing various languages and time. Listed below are some of these movies and how they captured the very soul of the Indian landscape.

The Good Road: While growing up in Kolkata, in the vicinity of Satyajit Ray’s house, some of Ray’s aura surely must have rubbed-off on the young Gyan Correa who went on to direct this gem of a movie in Gujarati called ‘The Good Road’ when he grew up. The Good Road was released in the year 2013 and was selected as India’s official entry to the Oscars later on, which caused a huge furore in the entire film fraternity, as some of them considered Ritesh Batra’s ‘The Lunchbox’ to have been an automatic choice.

The movie was mostly shot on the roads of Gujarat near Kutch and its cinematography captures the lyrical soul of a desert like setting where roads are covered with wild countryside of endless void, devoid of much greenery or vegetation.

Road, Movie: This movie is about the journey of a young man called Vishnu, who was brilliantly portrayed on screen by Abhay Deol. Vishnu wanted to escape the humdrum of boredom in his daily life, where he has no interest whatsoever in his father’s traditional business. So, when he got the chance, he set out with an old truck across the desert landscape of India to his destination of a port. This movie was again shot in some of the desert areas of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan and Kutch in Gujarat. Along the way, Vishnu meets a young boy, an old man and an attractive gypsy woman. In the backdrop of a harsh Indian terrain, Vishnu also found joy and laughter in his many trials and tribulations. This movie again captures the lyrical proportions of an Indian desert which in its rugged sense has a beauty of its own. ‘Road, Movie’ has been directed by Dev Benegal.

Piku: Piku is not a road movie in the traditional sense of the word, but one of its most important plot twists happens on the road. The movie is about the protagonist Piku and her eccentric father Bhashkor who is obsessed with his bowel movements. Because of this problem, when the father and daughter had to go to Kolkata from Delhi, they took the road rather than the aeroplane as the father was not confident about his bowel conditions on air. They were driven by Rana, played by the ever indulgent Irrfan Khan.

Piku was very aptly portrayed by Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan played the role of her cantankerous father. Their journey to Kolkata shows a beautiful Indian landscape, though this portion of the film was shot on the Gujarat Ahmedabad highway rather than an UP-Kolkata highway. Nonetheless, the journey captures the Indian landscape in accordance with the colourful characters who were driving on it in the movie. The entire film somehow took the road to process the chemistry between its main characters (like Piku and Rana developing a certain rhythm). This film was beautifully directed by Shoojit Sircar and was released in 2015.

Highway: Highway is the movie which saw the emergence of Alia Bhatt as a great and nuanced actress of Indian cinema. She not only played her character to its perfect fruition in this movie, her easy charm and innocence probably reflected the metaphorical concept of a road being an empty verse where characters can add to their own songs. The film ‘Highway’ is about a city girl who was abducted by a much older man and about whom she develops some kind of a Stockholm syndrome later on probably due to her oppressed childhood, but which also saw her experience the true meaning of freedom and liberty while traversing on varied Indian roads. The film was shot on many highways, covering the states of Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir and even Delhi. It was directed by Imtiaz Ali and was released in 2014.

Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter