Among the loudness and shrillness of contemporary cinema and the various ideological wars it finds itself in middle of, Three of Us, is an oasis of calmness. It is a serious contemplation about the relation between self and memory. Parallel is an overused and abused term in the context of Indian cinema, but the contemporary moment forces you to think that Three of Us exists in a parallel universe.
The scenic beauty of Konkan adds to the poignancy of the film. The characters have a certain softness to them, there are no pointed edges. The characters have a genuine vulnerability which makes them look real. No exaggerated emotions, no heightened sensibilities, no melodrama. It is banal and beautiful.
Jaideep Ahlawat, who exuberates calmness, asks his wife, what brought shalini to her origin, Udgam? As Shefali Shah, who did not miss a note in film, walks through her childhood memory, we accompany her on that journey and probably some of us, I certainly did, in our head went on our own journeys. I spent my initial years in a place called Bahargoda, which is a remote town on the border of Odisha and Jharkhand. I have vague memories of that place and I have often wanted to visit that place, just to breathe the air that I once breathed when my consciousness was getting shaped.
In a scene where, Jaideep and Shefali were in a giant wheel by the sea that stopped in mid air, a beautiful metaphor for suspension of life and time. They went back to a moment in their childhood when they got separated, they both bring such tenderness and vulnerability to their performances. Swanand, who plays the husband of Shefali, seems sincere and his performance has a simplicity that non-actors bring to acting. They are able to capture and convey the truth of the moment. In all the scenes where Shefali meets her childhood acquaintances, an awkwardness appears on Swanand’s face, that is so real.
Memory is our sixth sense. The all seeing self is built from the blocks of memory. Without memory, there is no self; and without self, there is no consciousness. All journeys through memories are a journey of our consciousness. Three of Us is a story about memory, self, and consciousness. In the time plagued by amnesia when it is no longer possible to know who we are, it brings out in us an urge to go back to our origins and ask, who we are?