Towering performances for a towering script! MASAAN is all this and much more. MASAAN provokes you, makes you think, and takes you on life's journey. How do you handle varied emotions thrown at you? How do you engage in a movie which nudges at your conscience? How do you participate in a movie which makes your heart weep for the protagonists? Finally, how do you applaud a movie that never once goes over-the-top? MASAAN (meaning crematorium) is a simple story told with all honesty and no frills attached. With MASAAN, first-time director Neeraj Ghaywan dishes out real-life trauma with close-to-real-life settings.

It's devastatingly hard to crush a skull. For all its lifelong fragility, the human skull is a significantly tough nut, which is why crematoriums have assistants on call to shove a stick into a pyre and ram it through what once was head, breaking it down so the flames licking at it can consume it quicker. As a child, I thought this skull-crushing was the reason these people are called Domes. They aren't, even if it sounds like they are. Doms -- or Masaanis, as they're frequently referred to in North India, the ones who man the Masaans, the crematoriums -- are a brutally marginalised people, one the rest of our frequently filthy yet eternally queasy nation considers too filthy to touch.

Every once in a while, comes along a film, which does not boast of a great star cast, but yet makes a powerful impression on you, mainly through its performance, writing and sheer talent. A few months back, it was Court and this week, it's Masaan. Directed by Neeraj Ghaywan, Masaan explores the India that lives in its small towns- the India of village fairs, of taboos regarding sex, of patriarchy, of selective morality and of romance threatened by caste differences. Devi (Richa Chadda) and her father Vidyadhar Pathak (Sanjay Mishra) end up being the victims of extortion by a corrupt cop, who raids a seedy motel and arrests Devi while in a compromising position.

If you invest thought on the purpose of watching a film, there would be multiple theories. One would be to experience someone's life and situations with such immersion, that you'd feel their joys and sufferings as yours. Masaan does that, and does it well. The film ushers us into a Banaras we've never seen in films. A Ganga ghat devoid of tourists, devotees, bobbing lamps on the holy waterbed or even saadhus slinging joints between their lips. For this is a Banaras as seen from a local's perspective. A Banaras where those engaged in corpse-burning by the ghats see the task that implies societal disgrace as just another job.

Souls are said to be liberated in Kashi; and 'masaan' (the colloquial local word for 'shamshaan') perfectly captures the unique character of a town which has been wrestling with life and death for centuries. Neeraj Ghaywan's strikingly assured, powerful debut feature conjures up a place which we rarely see in our movies: a place not limned or air-brushed, but presented as it is, its beauty and ugliness for us to savour in equal measure.

In Hindu mythology, cremation holds a very important meaning. It's not just about putting a dead body and soul to peace. It's a process of renewal and catharsis. Fire, which is holy and divinely pure, cleanses a soul and prepares it for the life ahead. It's a deeply romanticized thought on cause and effect. And it's true depiction and pertinence to reality is what Masaan is all about. This is great writing. This is a great film. A layered and sublime tale about life, death and beyond. That after pain and suffering comes redemption.

There are two locations that serve as powerful backdrops for a quintessentially Indian story. One is Kashmir, the other is the river Ganga. Masaan (meaning "crematorium") might just have been as forgettable as any average story, had it not been for the Ganga and the river banks of the holy city of Varanasi that witness life and death. For India, the Ganga is no ordinary river. It has beauty, mystique and sacred significance. If used well, it can also be a most powerful character. Neeraj Ghaywan, debut director of Masaan, understands this and has woven it intimately into Varun Grover's tight screenplay.

There are 28 trains that stop at Varanasi and 68 that don't, points out one Sadhyaji (played by the brilliant Pankaj Tripathi) in Masaan. "Matlab yahaan aana aasan hai, par yahan se jaana mushkil," he says. First time director Neeraj Ghaywan's Masaan is a film just like that, a journey that takes you to a place you cannot completely return from. Set in Varanasi, this film shows you the town not from touristy eyes that fall on the historic ghats, the temples, the chillam smoking saadhus or the thousand diyas that float on an inky Ganges in the night. We see the place through the eyes of rebellious youngsters who are trying to change their reality in a society that doesn't allow them to.

Maybe it takes a fresh, unspoilt-by-Bollywood mind to capture the subtlest of hues of first love. And tragedy. And struggle. And overriding all, hope: Untarnished, unadulterated, but with that pinch of salt. Debutant director Neeraj Ghaywan's Masaan is emotionally devastating at one level, and even more hopeful at another. The film's laurels at this year's Cannes International Film Festival are adequate evidence of the brilliance that is Masaan, but it's got a lot more to it than just awards. Masaan drives home that age-old, simple adage simply: This too shall pass.

The premise of 'Masaan' is fairly engaging. Parallel stories of two young people who have grown up surrounded by the Hindu rites of death, already establish that their circumstances are a disadvantage. How traditional small towns norms can damage a person's life is subtly argued. The film is effective without filmy drama. A second good reason is its narrative which plays out like a slice of real life minus the moroseness. In dialogues, writing & it's use of Hindi couplets, 'Masaan' has brilliantly captured truisms of Eastern Uttar Pradesh's local culture.

It is in Banaras where Sanskrit Pandit(Sanjay Mishra) and his student-daughter, Devi(Richa) lead an innocuous existence. Richa's curiosity to know more about the bees and the birds has her checking into a seedy lodge for a rendezvous with college friend Piyush Agarwal (Saurabh Chaudhary). However, their sexapade ends abruptly because a badass cop (Bhagwan Tiwari) raids the place and blackmails them.

An eagle's eye for detailing coupled with some excellent piece of writing is what largely works for 'Masaan', apart from other fine things. Neeraj Ghaywan in his debut film offers a realistic portrayal of the hypocritical society that we live in, which looks at premarital sex between two adults as a taboo, but doesn't hesitate exploiting it in every other way. Devi (Richa Chadda) finds herself in a strange, helpless situation, thanks to her one 'indulgence' with the man she was attracted to. Her father, Vidyadhar Pathak (Sanjay Mishra), a small-time shopkeeper selling goods used for last rites of dead people, is most embarrassed by his daughter's 'immoral' act, but ironically compromises on his own morality, when it comes to saving her honour.

Neeraj Ghaywan's deftly crafted Masaan is a multi-layered portrait of a hidebound society in rapid flux. Dripping pain and poetry in equal measure, the film presents intertwined stories of repression, rebellion and repentance set against the funeral pyres of a Varanasi cremation ghat. Its multiple strands add up to a cinematic tapestry that is both moving and stimulating. Its depiction of disruptive social change - represented by the growing impingement by Facebook and YouTube - and how it plays out in the lives of four small-town individuals is subtle, naturalistic and sure-handed.