Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara - Sound of a Vacation

(This post was originally an assignment for my Sound Design class. I found it to fit my blog, so I decided to post it publicly. Find it here also.) 

Vacation movies do well because they do more than weaving in good plot and characters- they let the viewer take a trip with them. Films like Eat, Pray Love , When In Rome or Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants have us drooling at their exotic location. Zoya Akhter’s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (ZNMD) uses the vacation vibe. An escape, an adventure.

Mise en scene - playing with the sound

Sparking the wanderlust with Spain’s beautiful long-winded roads among sunlit hills, the sound should sing with the visuals. To me, that is what ZNMD does. What is Spain without Spanish interludes? The most pleasant parts of the movies, Kabir’s Pethras (pranks), are covered by a signature interlude that captures the mischievousness of the characters and the liveliness of the location. 

The vacation is the broader context of the film that ties it together. But the reason the trip is important to each character- Kabir, Arjun and Imraan- reveals their emotional conflicts.  Each part of it has a pocket of emotion that is accentuated by the background music. In some places, the music does get dramatic. This is the case with the flashbacks of Arjun and his ex-girlfriend. After all, we Bollywood goers are suckers for the emotion, and the background score gives us just that.

Defining spaces with sound

ZNMD isn’t one of those movies that is confined to two or three spaces. Throughout the movie, the trio is on the road, in hotel rooms, at different restaurants or at their adventure sport sites.

The hotel rooms have very little ambience sound. There is little space for any kind of extra sound in these scenes anyway as they have enough foley and cut-to-cut dialogs like Imraan’s quips, Kabir’s peace-making and Arjun’s incessant need to be on the phone. Scenes in cafes have clinking of cups and chatter.  Exterior locations are more vibrant with the soft chirping of birds. Since the three are mostly driving around, the low hum of the car also adds to their conversation. When the three meet in the hotel for the first time, there is a soft background music running through the scene. That kind of music is what anyone who has ever been to a hotel reception would have heard. Here, it is deftly used not just as an ambiance but also as background music for the scene. This is the reason I felt that the sound keeps up and assists the pacing of the film.

As discussed before, emotions are brought using sound. When Imraan and Kabir are walking around the streets, there is a Spanish instrumental playing. This gives feeling of exploration. The feeling of exploration through music also happens in many Hollywood vacation flicks.  However, when Imraan reaches his father’s shop, the mood and background music changes completely. This is a personal moment for Imraan and the audience is privy to it through his facial expression and the background music. Sounds also help the characters reminisce. Arjun’s phone ringing might be an irritant to his friends, but to Arjun, it brings memories of how his ex-girlfriend left him because he couldn’t make time for her. Similarly, clinking of glasses is about celebration but also the first thing Kabir thinks of when he remembers how he accidentally proposed to Natasha.

There is also the cultural context of the space that needs to be considered. On the one hand, the sounds of Spain has a cultural relevance. A festival in Spain would sound very different from a festival in India. The Tomatina festival has a cheering crowd, and the squishy splatter of tomatoes throwing around. But since we have never had something like this in India, we find it to be believable yet unfamiliar. On the other hand, Imraan’s home in Mumbai has the ambience of vehicles and birds that one might hear in a Mumbai morning. It is more familiar to an Indian audience.

Use of elements in sound

In my opinion, each adventure sport stood for an element- Deep water diving was water, sky diving was air and bull racing was earth. The completion of each adventure led to catharsis of one of the characters.The sound too dwells in the personal moments of the character with relevance to the story.

The first adventure, i.e deep water diving, was a time of reflection for Arjun. Before he is about to going, all the other noise tunes out and all we can hear are heartbeats. Since the audience knows that this task is the hardest for Arjun, the heart beats are associated to him. I personally feel that as a Bollywood film, the heartbeat works well. It is subtle but leaves goosebumps for the listener as they take the dive with Arjun. When he comes out of the water, there is complete silence except for the rising and falling of the waves and his breathing. In this moment, the three of them don’t speak. They are all looking at the water and there is complete silence. This goes with the theme that water denotes reflection. I wouldn’t have liked it if there was loud emotional music or adrenaline pumping music playing in the background. Arjun got over a fear that he thought he would have in his life forever. He realised that things can change in life and there is no need to be rigid all the time.

The second adventure sport was sky diving. As it denotes the element of air, there is emphasis on wind, like a falling object would hear it. As the scene starts, we can hear the hum of the aircraft. The hum is louder from outside and lesser heard inside. Imraan finds himself to be the last one to jump off the plane, needing a push at the very end. Again, we hear his heart racing, showing  that this is his greatest fear. We are engulfed by the sound of Imraan screaming against the rush of the wind. Once he settles into his parachute, the wind sounds more serene. It isn’t as scary as he thought it would be. The skydiving adventure shows bonding. Imraan and Arjun finally put their differences aside, as each has overcome their greatest fear.  This is not a moment for silence but for celebration. When Imraan hits the ground, his two friends hug him and cheer for completing the adventure of  lifetime.

Finally, there is bull racing as element of earth, This is different from the previous scene where the trio were onlookers to bull racing. Now, they are at the center of the mayhem. We start with the ambience of a pumped up crowd. We already know that something big is about to happen and the crowd adds to the excitement. The rockets flying serve as cues for when the bulls are let out.  As the bulls are set free, we hear them charging towards our characters at full speed. The crowd grows louder. Fast paced background music takes over. Our heroes shout and run as fast as they can.  As you may have noticed, sound has a lot to do with getting the energy up for this scene. As it shoulders the responsibility of being the emd to the whole saga, the sound also is climatic, ending the movie on a high note.

Poetry as narration

Along with background music and great dialogs, the use of poetry in this film is like no other in recent times. The context of having a poetic narration is established since Imraan is a poet and the narration is in his voice. However, this is such an integral part of the movie that even the end scene has him reciting a poem, wrapping up the joy ride vacation with words of wisdom about life.