27 Down

The film is set on 27 Down, the Bombay-Varanasi Express, Sanjay (M.K. Raina) is on a pilgrimage journey to (Banaras), and remembers his life in . Sanjay gives up his dreams to become an artist, in order to support his family he takes up his father’s profession of railways employee. He spends his days as a railways ticket checker, till he meets a employee, Shalini (Raakhee), on the suburban train. After a few more meetings, they fall in love, and Sanjay starts seeing life differently, but when his father finds about their relationship, he fixes his marriage with some other girl. 27 Down is featured in Avijit Ghosh’s book, 40 Retakes: Bollywood Classics You May have Missed. He wrote the film explores urban alienation just like French writer Albert Camus did in his novels; something no Hindi film had done before. Cinematographer AK Bir’s camera travels inside the mind of the protagonist, he also said. The film was shot on location on Bhusaval railway station, steam yard, suburbs of railway premises and railway quarter for some scenes while other major parts at Mumbai trains, platforms, and at Mumbai’s station, suburbs of Mumbai, the cinematographer of the film, was 22 years old when he got the project, he shot 70 percent of the film using a , inspired by , a 1966 war film with an aim to put the camera right in the conflict, he shot with wide lenses rather than zooms. Bir chose to shoot the film in black and white, as he wanted stark contrasts. As it was difficult to control across crowd, most of the film’s platform scenes were shot in the night, or at side platforms, and extras made it look like a busy time.