Review : Vihir

Who would have thought that a modest and unassuming young man from Pune would spring the city back to the place of pride it once held on India’s cinema landscape? Home to FTII, the country’s premier film school & Prabhat Film Company, one of India’s oldest and most prestigious production houses, the city boasts of a connection with leading lights in all departments of filmmaking. Pune also played host to the formation of one of Indian cinema’s greatest ever collaborations – Guru Dutt & Dev Anand. Sadly, in spite of its rich cultural heritage, close connections to cinema and a passionate fervour for the art among its citizens, Pune hadn’t provided the industry with a homegrown talent worth its salt in recent years. That stands changed, for Umesh Kulkarni has arrived, and how! His first film, Valu, a satire based in rural Maharashtra, had won a lot of critical acclaim and also gave an ample glimpse of his promise. With his second film, Vihir, again based in rural Maharashtra, Umesh transcends the heights of Valu many times over.

The opening sequence of Vihir is a fine example of the magic in Umesh’s craft. Through an exchange of letters between the two main protagonists, Samir (Madan Deodhar) & Nachiket (Alok Rajawade), he kills two birds with one stone. He establishes the character sketches of the two, cousins & best friends. Samir is the city boy, living in Pune. His mother is married into a decently well-off middle class family. He’s outgoing, competitive & is interested in sports. Nachiket, slightly older, resides in Pandharpur. His mother, Samir’s maternal aunt, is married to a wastrel whose life begins and ends with the liquor bottle. Nachiket is introverted, contemplative and is interested in science. Apart from establishing the characters, the sequence also shows minutely detailed differences between urban & rural life through its mise-en-scene, thus sensitizing the viewer towards the atmosphere of the film.

The action then shifts to Samir & Nachiket’s mothers’ village where the entire extended family has gathered for their youngest aunt’s wedding. This is where the film hits top gear, with each family member playing an important part in the proceedingswhich operate at different layers – material, metaphysical & philosophical. The crux of the action remains around Samir & Nachiket though the other strains are all connected beautifully to a larger point the film is trying to make.

The family is dysfunctional. The relationships are mired with conflicts and tensions. Ideological clashes, jealousy, economic hardships and compromises are the salient features of the household. But it still forges on like a well-oiled machine, an unseen force guiding it. This puzzle of the Indian family, that has baffled sociologists for ages, is brilliantly deconstructed by Umesh in the film.

The conversations between Samir and Nachiket are mind-blowing. They’re made up of mundane day to day language that’s common to boys in their late teens and yet, are deeply philosophical. Their favourite rendezvous is the family well (Vihir is marathi for Well) where the two feel far removed from the tensions back home and bare their hearts out to each other. Nachiket’s patience with the conflicts at his parents home as well as his grandfather’s has reached a boiling point and he wants to run away from it. His conversation with Samir on the subject brings out the maturity gap between the two in sublime fashion. Another highlight is their conversation about invisibility. Trust me, this is stuff you’ll want to hear and reflect on again and again.

And then, tragedy strikes, taking Samir on a journey to resolve the many puzzles he’s facing in life, a journey that is highly reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s Waking Life. He meets several people along the way, goes through life-altering experiences and endsthe journey coinciding with his emotional transformation from boy to man. This is a refreshingly different coming of age story where unlike the regular rigmarole in films of this genre, where the protagonist faces struggles in his life to come out a better person. In Vihir, the protagonist comes out of his comfort zones out of his own free well and explores his bearings without any struggles to motivate him. Samir’s interactions with an old & wise shepherd he meets on the journey deserve special mention.

The hero of the film is its writing. Writers Satee Bhave & Girish Kulkarni deserve full marks for their efforts which reflect tremendous philosophical depth on their part. The parallels drawn between death and invisibility, the spontaneous inclusion of social comments and the interplay between different characters is done without compromising on the rustic flavour of the film and the simplicity of the writing.

The deep and elaborate content is ably matched by the film’s technical finesse. The astute sound design, the expert camerawork and the melliflous background music enhance the effect of the content manifold. The sound engineers have exquisitely captured various water sounds – the gush of a stream, the splash in a well, the echo of ripples and even the stony silence of a calm well. Sudhir Palsane’s camerawork in the dull interiors of the family house as well as the beautiful landscape of the Maharashtra hinterland is a treat.The Hindustani classical based background music sucks you into the film with its haunting charm.

The performances in the film are top-rate. Madan Deodhar & Alok Rajawade are confident and exude the essence of the film remarkably well. It must’ve been a challenging ask for Umesh to have made these young minds understand the depth of the film’s content and he’s done it with astounding success. The supporting cast of Mohan Agashe (grandfather), Jyoti Subhash (grandmother), Girish Kulkarni (uncle) etc. have also turned in great performances.

Umesh has made optimum use of all these elements to create a landmark in the history of Indian cinema. Vihir is a moving, thoughtprovoking, spellbinding and emotionally gratifying epic. Here’s a filmmaker with the potential to be named alongside Ray, Sen, Gopalakrishnan, Dutt & their likes. But for that to happen, he’ll need every bit of support from the industry as well as from us, the audience. ABCorp has already set the ball rolling by producing Vihir. We’re looking forward to other producers coming to the fore as well. As for us, the audience, let’s make the Vihir DVD a huge success by buying a copy when it releases. And if someone from the authorities are listening, Vihir is the best bet we’ve had in recent years to bag international film awards of repute. Please, someone have a look.