Sai Tamhankar (Pune 52, Pondicherry) owns the role of a prickly agent provocateur; Sagar Deshmukh, Ipshitaa and Radhika Apte are inspired
Illustration/Uday Mohite
Mohit Takalkar’s film Medium Spicy is an enjoyable flowering of his roots in contemporary, experimental Marathi theatre. Nissim Tipnis (Lalit Prabhakar) is a sous-chef in a fancy Mumbai restaurant, with an offer to work in Paris, who enjoys a friendship with two women at work—his boss chef Gowri (Sai Tamhankar) and colleague Prajakta (Parna Pethe). He’s such a pleasant, commitment-phobic bloke, that both women, who are attracted to him, despair. Takalkar’s film is a nuanced reflection on the unreliable rewards of love and marriage. It is an astute, funny, thoughtful and philosophical film about people like us, with enough romance and romantic songs to make it a rather satisfying ‘mindie film’ (my term for mainstream+indie) that is streets ahead of Bollywood in many ways. Kuch toh seekho, Bollywood*!
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This is the third feature of Takalkar, a film director, screenwriter, film editor, and veteran theatre director and playwright, who initially trained as a chef (in hotel management), and also runs the Barometer restaurant in Pune, with friends. He directed The Bright Day (Toronto Film Festival), Chirebandi, a documentary on playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar, Medium Spicy—his most accessible film yet—and Occasional Reflection on the Contingencies of Life, his fourth feature. His Aasakta Kalamanch, the contemporary theatre group he founded, has produced over 30 plays.
Takalkar’s confident direction prefers delicate strokes to reveal characters and moments, rather than big melodrama, yet holds your attention. Of the cast, Lalit Prabhakar (Anandi Gopal, Chi Va Chi Sau Ka) is credible: he is charming, bland and maddening by turns. Sai Tamhankar (Pune 52, Pondicherry) owns the role of a prickly agent provocateur; Sagar Deshmukh, Ipshitaa and Radhika Apte are inspired.
Writer Irawati Karnik’s screenplay (Anandi Gopal, Smile Please) radically questions the middle class obsession with romance and marriage, which can also bring drudgery, loneliness and grief, while relationships with family, friends and co-workers can also be our saviours. A feminist film packaged as a romance, rather than as a foodie romance like Sachin Kundalkar’s Gulabjaam, it validates two strong women outliers and self-fulfilled achievers, for whom marriage is not even worth a discussion. For flinty chef Gowri, Nissim’s boss from Chennai—who is single, whose parents are divorced, who has a strong career, and makes the moves in a relationship—love: great, but is optional. Toning down her shock value would have made her more relatable. (After all this drama, the climax reveals an eclair heart.) The other woman is Nissim’s Aunt Laxmi (Arundhati Nag), estranged since her photographer partner Farhad is Muslim (OMG!) and they’re living together. She is self-contained; surrounded by art, Farhad’s framed photographs, LP music; she has published a book in her middle age, “about journeys and pathways,” like the Silk Route that ran through Samarkand to Shanghai. Karnik’s Maharashtrian protagonist is called Nissim (a Jewish name); Gowri lives in a house with a Catholic landlord in Bandra, and Laxmi’s partner is Muslim, all creating a richer, secular world. Both women value self-actualisation more than marriage. Nissim’s father, who taught Shakespeare at Elphinstone College, is horrified that a Maxim Gorky book costs R75, but a Chetan Bhagat costs R150 (wicked, wicked!). When did you last meet a Bollywood character who discussed books, relished art or thumris on LP?
Raghav Ramadoss and Rahul Chauhan’s cinematography is good, as is Takalkar’s editing. Hrishikesh Datar, Saurabh Bhalerao and Jasraj Joshi compose lovely music/songs, with Saurabh Bhalerao’s superb Western background score, with cello and shehnai, elevating this Marathi film. Bravo to Takalkar, whose formidable women’s arsenal includes producer Vidhi Kasliwal, screenwriter Karnik and sound designer Anita Kushwaha. *KTSB.
Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com
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