Small towns and villages have been turning up in Hindi films lately. While escape from the embarrassing, plastic coloured imitations of Friends are a relief, many of these films leave you feeling you were promised Sushi but given well-made haka noodles.
Small towns and villages have been turning up in Hindi films lately. While escape from the embarrassing, plastic coloured imitations of Friends are a relief, many of these films leave you feeling you were promised Sushi but given well-made haka noodles. The small town becomes exotica -- a way for hyper masculine filmmakers to show they know all about the badlands vibe, rustic gaalis and kitsch interiors that prove their hinterland creed and indie-ness. The village becomes a location for progressive folk to prove they care about the "real" India.
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In a contest for fake authenticity, we often lose the chance to see a rooted story, to feel transported into other worlds and lives. Everyone tries so hard, we emerge drained like those forced to listen to other people's children recite endless nursery rhymes.
But if you'd like to see a film about a small place which is fresh and funny, you should haul your behind to the cinema halls when a small film is released in Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore on October 29.
First-time director Bela Negi's Daayen ya Baayen is choc-a-bloc with delights: characters who are eccentric, infuriating, flawed and endearing in the way dreamers and hopers and no-hopers are, dialogue full of local sarcasm and humour, an excellent, riotous cast -- Deepka Dobriyal, who impressed in Omkara, and zesty local actors with the recognisable beauty of everyday faces, wonderful cinematography, a sharp yet accessible intelligence, a knowledge of cinematic language and a big, big heart.
Through rich detail the film portrays the universal desire to dream of utopias, to find in ourselves the best we can be: wise fools who want to love and be loved for the people we are and the poets we can be.
This is the story of Majila, who returns, a bit defeated, from the city, to his idyllic village in the hills. His wife is aghast at this reverse migration and fall in status! Even as we laugh at her comical dismay, we do wonder, what is this odd fellow going to do in this dreamlike place where sheer rivers gleam, trees sigh wetly and ghosts sometimes smile on full moon nights -- but where a mixture of economy and culture robs men of ambition and possibility so that they sit around playing cards, drinking and farting around?
But Majila has a dream: to start an arts centre in the village school. He pursues it with zeal and energy. In the bargain, he influences school kids into writing earnest poems, earns the adoration of his son, the mockery of other villagers -- and wins a bright red car in a slogan contest. The car sets off jealousy and a few wrong turns as Majila loses his way, as people do, unbalanced by criticism, ego and the uncertain business of being human. How he finds the way back is a ride both, sweetly and darkly comic; he arrives at the end a triumphant hero, a little, but just a little, as he says, compromised.u00a0
In a country of a billion people, it's a mystery to me why we don't have more films like this -- entertaining without being in the typical Bollywood costume, that speak of identifiable human dilemmas without pretending to be about "issues", that are not derivative of "world cinema". The visionless producers and incompetent marketing so-called professionals who don't seem to comprehend the phrase 'niche markets' will never do you the favour of publicising and releasing a film of this kind, without the crutch of stars, well. So do yourself a paisa vasool favour and go see it with family and friends.
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Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. She runs Devi Pictures production company.
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