There’s something intimate and otherworldly about Rashmoni’s (Moushumi Chatterjee) wooden jewellery box. She guards it with her life and grudgingly doles out little pieces of intricate gold to new brides in the household with a bitter word thrown in to underline her disapproval. She keeps meticulous records of her cherished possessions and secretly tries them out in the confines of her chamber. They represent everything her life may have been if fate (or more accurately, the force of patriarchy) hadn’t played its cruel hand. Married at 11 to a much older man, widowed at 12, she has lived in deprivation and neglect ever since, her long tresses cruelly chopped off, her desires trampled even before she discovered them.
I remember Mrinal Kulkarni
(formerly Mrinal Dev) from the seminal Marathi television series Swami,playing young Rama, the gentle, endearing wife of Madhavrao
Peshwa while still in her teens. The image has stuck and her later film and
television forays never quite matched up to that memory; not even the hugely
popular series Avantika. With her
directorial debut, Prem Mhanje Prem
Mhanje Prem Asta!?, Kulkarni adds a definitive feather to her cap in a
delicate and mature romance that reflects accurately and with feeling the
churning in urban Marathi society of the post-globalisation era.
In the summer of 1996, as a
rookie journalist, I went to Aurangabad and Latur on the campaign trail for the
Lok Sabha elections. At a rally addressed by Sharad Pawar and Vilasrao Deshmukh
in Latur, there was a youngish, weary-looking woman of modest means sitting
cross-legged at the front of the gathering, right next to where I was. While the
political speeches continued, the nervous woman kept rolling a piece of paper
in her hand wondering how to approach the dais and hand it to one of the
leaders. Eventually she mustered courage and reached out to Mr Pawar who
distractedly took the paper and kept it with him for the duration of the function. When he was leaving, he tossed a quick glance at it before casually
letting it slip from his hand and walking off. The young woman had already left
by then, perhaps carrying with her the hope that one of these great men would pay
heed to her grievance and alleviate her suffering.
Till Paresh Mokashi made Harishchandrachi Factory (2009), all we
knew about Dadasaheb Phalke was that he directed India’s first fiction film Raja Harishchandra (1913) and there’s an
award named after him. Mokashi’s vision transformed this pioneering effort into
the adventures of a Chaplinesque hero obsessed with moving pictures and
prepared to stake everything to fulfill his impossible dream. Interestingly, Harishchandrachi Factory was bankrolled
by none other than UTV, a sure sign of the dramatic turnaround in Marathi
cinema after the remarkable success of a small (and not necessarily classic)
film called Shwaas(2004), which won
the National Award for Best Feature Film and literally breathed new life into
a floundering industry.
Nandu Madhav and Vibhavari Deshpande in 'Harishchandrachi Factory'
I’ve always
believed that Marathi cinema is miles ahead of its big brother in terms of
content and performances, and displays the courage to tackle diverse subjects
without shying from the truth. Often, what keeps it from attaining heights of
cinematic greatness is the paucity of funds resulting in inconsistent visual
appeal. Some directors work in television and make movies at the same time and
their framing techniques and use of spaces are often the same for both media.
Satish Rajwade is one such filmmaker, full of ideas about relationships and their quirks, gently tickling the funny bone while addressing nuances of contemporary
urban life without seeming preachy.
There’s a thing about cinematic
referencing. One can’t know for sure if young filmmakers are always conscious
when they doff a hat to the classics. In the case of Nikhil Mahajan’s Pune 52, the connection is more obvious.
Kids are playing in the field and hear the distant sound of an approaching
train. They stop their game and a little girl looks at the boy standing next to
her and slips a coin into his hands. He starts running towards the
tracks, the director cutting between his frenzied run to make it in time and
the menacing chug of the train.
I spent the best time of my
growing life in a chawl not very different from the one shown in Ravi Jadhav’s Balak Palak. Peopled by characters that seem
unnaturally innocent in hindsight––even with their quirks and squabbles and tendency
to gossip––these housing projects with a central courtyard and common corridors
running along the perimeter of the building gave their inhabitants a sense of
community. So that, when the young boys and girls on the threshold of teen age who
are at the centre of the film, start reading porn fiction (procured from their
wiser friend probably residing in a nearby slum), the neighbourhood uncle
(Kishore Kadam) can walk up to their fathers and caution them about not paying
enough attention to the boys’ activities without being talked off or misunderstood.
Can you describe your journey to becoming a filmmaker?
I never wanted to be a
director and was one exam away from qualifying as a Chartered Accountant. But I was
interested in the arts and in architecture. While in college I
joined Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukhtankar on Doghi, their directorial
debut, as they were looking for young boys to assist them with the project.
When I saw the film I realised that it was very different from the shooting
process and that it involves all the activities that interest me––theatre,
literature, dance, music and spaces.
At 36 Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni is easily Marathi cinema’s finest
contemporary director. Unlike others still resting on their debut successes, he
has already helmed three critically acclaimed films––two of them commercial
hits––won a National Award for Best Director for Deoolthis year, taken his work to various international festivals and turned
creative producer for two films including Nikhil Mahajan’s forthcoming noir
thriller, Pune 52. Kulkarni spoke to
Film Impressions about his cinematic influences, social consciousness, penchant for satire and deep-rooted compassion for his environment.
When the Prabhat Film Company released their historical-musical Sant Tukaram in 1936 about the great 17th century poet-saint, cinema as spectacle/miracle was still very much in form and the idea of Vithoba (Vitthal, another name for Krishna) watching over his ardent devotee from the skies and showering him with gifts and his benevolence at every turn must have seemed the best way to bring this story to the screen.
Directed by V. Damle and S. Fattelal, the celebrated feature -- it ran to packed houses for over 50 weeks and was feted at the prestigious Venice Film Festival -- cast Tukaram as a creature who didn't belong to this world yet had to live with the constant nagging of his quarrelsome but loving wife Aawli and face the ire of the Brahmin community which loathed his interference in the business of religion and usurping their constituency with his simple and evocative abhangs in praise of the Lord.
