Anvatt: Elusive Fear

Praveen Lulekar

Some films are just directors’ experiments to explore something new. So the focus is on doing the basics right – appropriate camera angles true to the genre, contextual background music, getting minimal but exact expressions out of the actors etc. With Gajendra Ahire, you always expect something new. If he took you in an abstract zone with Postcard, Anvatt is his experiment about the basics of the supernatural genre.

Unfortunately, he misses out on creating the real drive of such films - scary moments.

Dr. Vinay (Adinath Kothare) and his wife Madhura (Urmila Kanetkar-Kothare) shift to a village in Konkan for a year. They decide to stay in an old vaada or bungalow there. Madhura, an archeologist, starts feeling presence of something unknown. Locals Sada Kamat (Makarand Anaspure) and Baijamma (Vibhavari Deshpande) back Madhura’s experiences with tales of a ghost. Vinay is reluctant to accept it. Whether this is supernatural or anything else is the mystery of the film.   

Supernatural/Mystery Thriller is a genre that has attracted many great directors. The perceived problem they create is to give a logical flow to their story; so even their spirits operate in a certain defined pattern. That is why, Ram Gopal Varma’s Bhoot remains underestimated as compared to Vikram Bhatt’s heroine eating a cat. Ahire’s aim in Anvatt is much complex – to play with the settings of the film.

The film relies on long, quiet sequences with Madhura roaming about – in the little jungle around and in the house. Something is constantly following her in the form of Ahire’s camera. In his trademark style, the director captures the wet, green and mysterious landscapes beautifully. Areas in the house, especially a dark staircase, are where fear resides. These are used optimally. But that doesn’t scare you because the bizarre is always restrained and explained. It is also difficult to remain interested because of the slow pace.

The background score (Amar Mohile) does a terrific job to cover this area. But the songs do not help. Ye re ghanaa... serves as a background but Tarun aahe raatr... is an absolute obstruction. It is placed at an instance when the fear is at a high point and the film gets close to gripping you.

So does that mean this is a bad film? – Difficult to decide. The film would be outright boring for those expecting a chill down their spine every now and then. On the story level, it definitely gets childish while explaining the whole mystery. But for someone like me, who thinks slowly and gets scared easily, this is fairly engaging. Relishing the picturesque locations is in itself a way to see the film.

The Kothare couple does a good job. Adinath is asked to underplay and he does well to raise a rational character. Urmila does the most important job – looking beautiful, which is important even from the story perspective. Her expressions are also well directed – the romantic, confused and scared woman emerges throughout. Anaspure has got the meatiest role. He again shows what he is capable of apart from comedy, but could have slightly dramatized to make it scary. Deshpande does brilliantly to make the proceedings mysterious. Kishore Kadam and Bhargavi Chirmule also appear in interesting cameos.

Go for Anvatt if you can savour all that is allied to fear. Fear itself is elusive in the film.

m4m says: One Time Watch 

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Dr. Prakash Baba Amte: A Representational Biography

Praveen Lulekar

Every generation has its heroes. And each group of followers follows two broad streams – those of revolution and of service. In the post-independence era, we have mostly been influenced by charismatic political leaders that adhered to the aggressive mode. Conservators of the second thought did what their ideology told them – serve the ignored. They never sought limelight and never spoke unless their work demanded them to.

The Amte family has been one such lineage of social servants. Dr. Prakash Baba Amte – The Real Hero is more a tribute, at most a representational biography of one of its member’s work. It honestly and effectively conveys the work of Dr. Prakash Amte and his wife Dr. Mandakini Amte. With more detailing and craft, this would have been a phenomenal film. 

The Amte couple shifted to Hemalkasa village (in Vidarbha, Maharashtra) in 1973 to serve the tribal community there. From building their own mud-house to manufacturing all the amenities for the hospital, they raised the set up on their own in the jungle. There were daunting tasks that were not limited to medical operations – winning the confidence of the tribal community, adjusting with their blind faiths, with Naxalism, fighting with illiteracy and the continuous disappointment by government machinery. They not only overcame this, but also achieved an all-round development of the area through the Lokbiradari Prakalp.

The film had the challenge to show this huge work that is spread across 40 years. It has chosen to use the flash-back mode to show the events. So the narration is not linear. A long episode about Naxalism is placed in the beginning and the film takes a while to hit the point. It then suddenly switched to the linear mode, where we see the story right from the arrival of the Amte couple in Hemalkasa. So the chapter-wise distribution is thrown away and we get into a narrative mode. Thanks to a smooth screenplay, this hiccup is not noticed. The film’s mood also remains uniformly calm.

The result is that, though a little clumsily, all the aspects of the Amtes’ life get covered. Director Samruddhi Porey chooses to focus on two major aspects – the difficulties in medical treatments and Dr. Prakash’s love for wild animals. Both the things come in aptly elaborative episodes. But when compared to Prakashvaata, Dr. Prakash’s memoir from which the film borrows abundantly, they remain representative. Though there is time constraint, a simpler formula would have been to choose the most intense episodes. The operation of a man attacked by a bear, for example, would have helped the film a lot.

Porey also inserts dramatisation, which seems to be the director’s view of looking at the film medium. Her initial shot of Dr. Prakash walking out of the water along with a superimposed tiger is a clear sign of her fascination for drama. Another example is the episode of Dr. Prakash deciding to wear only an inner vest comes after he sees a child shivering in cold. In the book, this comes as his practical decision so that the tribal people could identify with them. This somewhere harms the character. Dr. Prakash is simple, empathetic and soft, but he is not impractical. One thing the film finely conveys is that he is a man of action.

Porey also misses out on an opportunity to underline the work of the whole family through Dr. Prakash. The book details out the contributions of Dr. Vikas (Dr. Prakash’s elder brother) and Baba Amte in the work at Hemalkasa. There is a beautiful homogeneity, brought about by details, to the book that the film lacks a bit. Porey could have avoided the Naxal episodes and the love-story part to dedicate more time to these details.

Nonetheless, the film is informative and moving as an independent work of art. Nana Patekar and Sonali Kulkarni bring out the characters to life masterfully. Watch it to understand that selflessness is actually a human possibility. Even if following their example would mean a sacrifice we are incapable of, let us be humble towards what we have got.

m4m says: A must watch

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Baji: A forgettable Superhero

Neha Ghatpande

It was nice to sit in a theatre packed to its full capacity to watch a Marathi film. But that was a momentary pleasure. It was extremely disheartening to see the film drive audience to react harshly after a point. Well, Baji, the first Marathi superhero, has not only failed to impress but has also raised questions such as why are we making these kind of films and for whom?

I can go on and on about why Baji is a bad film but I would like to focus more  upon why Bajiremains to be a wasted opportunity. I say this because it had everything- a good budget, great cast and a talented filmmaker. Still, it fails on every ground.

The storyline is simple. It is set in a village named Shrirangpur that has a vigilante, a saviour named Baji. Now, Baji is not one particular person but a tradition of a family that is passed on to further generations. Chidvilas (Shreyas Talpade) a naïve village boy belongs to this family but lacks the instinct of a superhero. He is in love with his childhood friend Gauri (Amruta Khanvilkar). Everything is going hunky dory when suddenly Martand (Jitendra Joshi) realises that there is an ancient treasure buried in the village somewhere. He becomes greedy and starts torturing the villagers and digging up the entire village.

Well, well! Shrirangpur is in trouble and desperately waiting for Baji to come back and save them. If you ask me, I think Baji never arrived!

Three major aspects that mark Baji’s failure are its length - nearly three hours, its atrocious music and seriously bad writing. In an Indian context if you get these three aspects right, your film is a hit. Period!

There are seven songs in the film and it becomes painful to sit through the narrative due to these musical disturbances. The music by Atif Afzal definitely scores a big zero.

Moving on to Dialogues (written by Surhud Godbole) and the Screenplay (Nikhil Mahajan), they are absolutely pointless. It seems Indian filmmakers have this idea that if you throw lines like –‘Joaaplyaashi nadel, to narkat sadel’ – you will become cool and filthy rich. Mind you, it doesn’t work!

The dialogues are childish; the screenplay is drab and at one point becomes unexplainable. Except the rare comic scenes such as that of Baji explaining a drunkard why he shouldn’t drink. These work thanks to Shreyas’s comic timing. Mahajan has got his characters in place but with the proceedings, they just lose their identity and start reacting unnaturally. Martand’s villainous character turns extremely dark as the film progresses. Grave violence is used to make the narrative impactful but one keeps wondering about how unnecessary it is.

Also, Shreyas plays three characters in this film namely the ancient Baji, the naïve Chidvilas and the lookalike Akash who then becomes Baji. In all of his roles, he plays Chidvilas the best as it demands comic timing, which he is definitely good at. Both Jintendra and Shreyas have worked really hard to get their bodies in shape but the poor writing does not back them. Amruta’s character is frivolous; she somehow manages to fall in love with all three characters played by Shreyas! The series of action sequences fail to engage and become hilarious in the second half. It doesn’t have exceptional cinematography either! Not to mention the absolute absence of editing.

m4m says: watch at your own risk

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Candle March: An Effective Statement

Praveen Lulekar

Last week, we discussed Happy Journey where the sole purpose of the director was story-telling. There were no statements or claims to be made. Candle March is a film that is made with a completely opposite sensibility. It has a social issue at its core and the story is constructed around it. The characters are representatives of an aspect of the issue. It resembles a journalistic project like Investment did. The ultimate objective is to underline harsh realities.

The good news is that Candle March succeeds in making effective statements.  Very few films understand almost all aspects of a social problem. Fewer portray them well. Although on a tad louder note, director Sachin Dev has raised a holistic picture regarding sexual offences against women.

The story revolves around a gang rape case. Sakhi (Sayali Sahastrabuddhe), a college-going girl, is raped by four men and is also attacked with acid after that. The case connects three other women – Anurata (Tejaswini Pandit), who admits Sakhi into the hospital; Shabana (Smita Tambe), whose husband Saadiq (Nilesh Divekar) is one of the culprits and Vidya (Manava Naik), a journalist covering the entire episode. The women are fighting a battle of their own against different kinds of sexual exploitations.

To start with, the film has an extremely tight screenplay (Sachin Darekar). Except a romantic song of Sakhi and her boyfriend, the film moves very crisply. The challenge here was to inculcate different aspects of the problem. The writer and director score very high on the front. Anurata has a disturbing past of being a victim of a sex scandal; Vidya is getting weaker in resisting the sexual advances of her boss and Shabana fights the chauvinism of her husband and that of bar owner, who promises to rescue Saadiq.

All this may sound like too much is stuffed in a single package. The initial phase proves that true. But the screenplay moves on to space things very well. Anurata’s past appears in flashbacks, Vidya’s story becomes almost a parallel track and Shabana’s realisation of Saadiq’s crime is the final nail in the coffin. The intensity which Dev builds upon throughout reaches a high point when Shabana confronts Saadiq; she asks him to ‘touch’ their 7-8 year-old daughter. The scene is extremely well executed and literally gives you a shiver.

Dev overall displays a firm grip on the narrative. He gives the film a loud tone but maintains it throughout. The little tricks he uses in the scene transformation in the initial part are really good. It is an interesting way to show how characters living different lives are connected. And when they actually come face to face, the interactions are riveting. When Shabana tells Anurata that it is difficult for a woman to survive alone, even the latter’s pain is tapped. The women learn from each other and more importantly, rise above such inhibitions.

On the acting front, all the three ladies have done a good job. Credit to the casting for picking the right actors for the right roles. Pandit is the real protagonist of the film. She conveys the quiet, disturbed character with control. Naik also fares well as the ambitious Vidya. Tambe is at her best with the loud-mouth yet suffocated slum-dweller. A special mention for Divekar, who makes Saadiq really hate-worthy.

The end is a little prolonged but that is because Dev wants to make a statement about the laws against sex crimes. Anurata’s final speech also gets long in the process. But it does raise a question unapologetically – does a rape victim have to die for the culprit to be hanged?

M4m says: A Must Watch 

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Vitti Dandu: On a Nationalistic Note...

Praveen Lulekar

What was our freedom struggle? Was it a bunch of British-haters fighting to save their culture? Or was it a deep rooted humiliation which infected every individual? Our understanding of India’s fight for independence has been dominated by two key perspectives (amongst several significant others) – that of aggressive nationalism and of the Gandhian spirit of self-respect.

Vitti Dandu is a film soaked in the first view. It begins with using nationalism as a foolish romantic concept and ends up using it as a clearly commercial tactic.

The film starts with probably the most simplistic narrative - Aapan Bharitya far sabhya aahot…Britishanni aaplyala lootla (We Indians are very naïve, the British looted us). We are then transported in time to August 6, 1947 in a village called Morgaon. We see a British-loving old man Daji (Dilip Prabhavalkar) and his grandson Govind (Nishant Bhavsar). The perfectly patriotic villagers see Daji as a ‘converted’. A place for the usual argument is easily created - Daji says, ‘The Britishers brought science, railways to India’; the villagers say, ‘But who invented the zero?’

Till interval point, such arguments take place in various forms. Daji’s side of the story is that he lost his son (Vikas Kadam) to the ‘madness’ of revolution. (And hence, the love for the goraas!!!) Then a cruel British officer (resembling Kancha of Agneepath) lands in Morgaon. Daji realises he is the one who killed his son and gets caught in a dilemma. Meanwhile, Govind, playing vitti-dandu with Daji, accidentally hits the cruel British officer with the vitti. The officer gets killed and things take a bizarre turn.

Every detail of the film takes you further and further away from reality. It begins with the setting. I definitely dozed off in my history lessons, but I know from watching many films that the British were withdrawing from India by August 6, 1947. But the village is still in the mood of revolution. What kind of revolution? It seems a mixed one. The villagers practice with guns and other weapons and finally take out a procession to oppose the British.

The village itself is a pathetic piece of fiction. There are no caste or religion barriers and all we need to solve our problems is freedom. The revolutionaries go to the length of foolishness and the British officers are strong stereotypes. There is make-believe feel which is exposed every now and then. A height is reached with the British officer deciding to hang Daji all by himself. The British were villains, let’s agree, but they had an institution called the court.

The film plunges in Rajnikanth mode in the final act when Govind and his little friends fight with the British with the vitti dandu. The children fly and the vittis make a zip-zap sound as they are thrown to kill the enemy. Not to miss, Daji gives a lesson in peace and prevents Govind (sitting on a British officer’s chest) from killing. The amazement is such that logic refuses to come back to your mind hours after the end titles.

If the technical quality is anything to go by, the makers knew exactly what they were making. This is an overt and unapologetic use of nationalism to gain commercial advantage. You tell a simplified tale, dip your characters in either black or white and mix a good amount of cheap humour and over-the-top action. No, we are not describing Singham here.

What holds the films together is an exceptional performance by Prabhavalkar (do we need to mention that now?), beautiful songs and cliché but defined camera work. Beyond that, the film remains a bad commercial enterprise. It might hit the jackpot, but will add nothing to Marathi cinema.

m4m says: watch at your own risk

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