'Woh Lamhe' is Mahesh Bhatt's farewell to the late actress Parveen Babi. He describes her as the woman he “loved and lost”.
The candid and outspoken Mahesh Bhatt has kept his life an open book. And 'Woh Lamhe', he says, “has erupted from the deepest part of my being.” It is his attempt to immortalize the memories of the late Parveen Babi , to tell her story to the world, to recreate the magical moments of love they once shared, and the unfortunate tragedy - Babi's mental breakdown - that ended it all bit by bit. It is his attempt “to let go” of her, now that she rests in peace.
'Woh Lamhe' is directed by Bhatt's protégé Mohit Suri. The film stars Shiney Ahuja as an out-of-work filmmaker and Kangana Ranaut as an actress in the prime of her career. Other actors in the film include Shaad Randhawa and Masumi Makhija.
Actress Sana Azim (Kangana) makes a suicide attempt at a Mumbai hotel. This news devastates filmmaker Aditya Garewal (Shiney) who had been searching for her everywhere. The two had been in love and she had disappeared from his life without any explanations.
As Aditya sits by the side of the dying Sana, memories from his past days overwhelm him. The film goes into flashback, in the days when love was beginning to take seed in the hearts of Sana and Aditya.
She was one of the top actresses of Bollywood and he was an out-of-work filmmaker. As the two fell in love, the media often accused him of having used her to create his own filmmaking career.
Everything seems hunky dory until another side of Sana's personality comes to the fore. She has a mental breakdown on the sets of a movie. She subsequently becomes ultra phobic, fearing that everyone was in some way conspiring to kill her.
With the huge money riding on her, the big shots of film industry want Sana to take electric-shock treatment to meet her professional commitments. But Aditya revolts. He runs away with Sana to a secluded place. There, he hopes that she will get cured solely by his love. But he fails and Sana disappears.
'Woh Lamhe' is Mahesh Bhatt's final goodbye to Parveen Babi, who was found dead in her flat in January 2005. Bhatt says Babi's death made him realize how much he loved her and how his emotions hade not withered with the passage of time.
The film incorporates many real-life sequences from Bhatt-Babi affair : their first realization of love on the sets of a movie, their intimate moments, Babi's breakdown, the night when she sat cringed in the corner of her room with a knife in her hand, their running away, and her subsequent end.
Bhatt obviously is the film's storywriter. Pritam has given the music. Mohit Suri is the director.
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