Sairat (Marathi, 2016)

Nagraj Manjule calls ‘Sairat’ as his reaction to Bollywood’s idea of a love-story. He takes an innocuous looking fisher-boy and a bold-upper caste girl and creates some spectacular moments of staring & counter-staring, inverting some age old gender clichés in the process. He shows that he can do this even better than the Bollywood filmmakers by sweeping the audience off their feet repeatedly during the 1st half. Of course, he shows his true allegiance in the 2nd half where he works on showing the grave in-your-face reality devoid of songs/background score.

Rinku Rajguru who plays Archie the female lead looks fresh without any form of acting school polluting her natural self. The way she says, “Do you understand Marathi or want to spell it out in English” repeatedly shows off her upper-caste ego fabulously. She uses the tremendous scope the character provides to full effect and comes off as a worthy National Award winner in the Special Recognition category.

Akash Thosar who plays Parshya, the meek male lead is overshadowed by Rinku. However, he too performs excellently in the sequences to woo Archie. The supporting characters who play the friends of the male lead, Saleem & Pradeep are splendid. The sequence involving Pradeep discovering the futility of his love is one of the most poignant sequences I have witnessed in recent times. Similarly, the casting of Tatya, Prince & the folks in AP are top notch.

One of the primal instincts of a human is to love and one of the most repeated stories in Cinema is the typical Love Story. However, the inventiveness with which the normal instances of “Boy-meets-girl, boy-loves-girl, girl-loves-boy” are told differentiates the good from the best. In Sairat, Sudhakar Reddy‘s outstanding camera-work and Ajay-Atul’s sensational score + songs create the kind of magic that can only be felt on the big screen. It is credit to the team that the same locales seem so morbid when things turn serious near & post interval. Special mention to the editor Kutub Inamdar for the fabulous single-flow sequence when Parshya uses a kid to give a love-letter to Archie.

Thematically the film delves into the perspectives of the upper & the lower castes towards each other. While the outlook of the upper caste is well documented across the ages, it is the view of the Dalit professor that shocks you, especially the word ‘defile’. The difference between loving someone & living with the same person is also shown brilliantly. Subtle touches referring to the casteist society are thrown across the film – how the fisherman struggles to marry off his daughter, how Tatya loses political mileage, how the Headmaster & professor are made to bow their heads to Tatya in spite of being right etc.

Not sure whether it is due to the trailer or perhaps the baggage associated with the filmmaker Nagraj Manjule, even in the rip roaring Zhingaat we find ourselves dreading the inevitable. In fact even through the positive happenings in the second half we sort of feel only partially happy. It is a sort of feeling that Tamizh filmmakers such as Bala & Selvaraghavan also evoke.