There are movies that can make you laugh, cry or simply entertain, and then there are those that can touch your heart even before you know it! I was struck by one such experience from the word go, and this time, by a Marathi movie, thereby urging me to pen my thoughts. I have to admit that Marathi cinema has, in recent times, matured leaps and bound with masterpieces like Harishchandrachi Factory, Valu, Bal Gandharva, to name a few, that have appealed to both critics and masses alike.
Before I go any further, I have to confess... I am no professional film critic, I simply believe in experiencing the movie and being entertained with what I see on the screen. Which means, you are not going to read the story, plot or such details. You will read, from an eyes of an "audience", the experience, the learning, the thoughts that raced my mind as I sat there for a couple of hours. It is only apt that one spends that time watching a movie and living the story than listening to it from a third person! The movie in question is Deool (Temple).
As the lights went dim, the screen lit up with an enchanting piece of sand art....two hands running through sand to create innate and picturesque designs as the film credits rolled. I was certain that the next two and a half hours would most definitely be promising and intriguing. And boy, I wasn't disappointed one bit!
The movie talks about a superficial transformation and "development" of a remote village in Maharashtra called Mangrul, portraying the shallow ideologies of the characters, which in more than many ways represent "each one of us" - our fears and one-dimensional perceptions, and the dwindling rural fabric and roots.
With stalwarts like Nana Patekar, Dilip Prabhavalkar, Sonali Kulkarni along with a stellar performance of writer-actor Girish Kulkarni, the film argues on the real definition of development, while skilfully representing both positives and negatives with balance. A fitting location, life-like situations, perfectly etched out characters, raw humour and satire, take the movie and the viewer to an altogether different level! It can easily get our mind to think and our heart to cringe.
With a backdrop of faith versus blind-faith and commercialisation of religion in the guise of progress and development, care has been taken that the it does not sound preachy and the viewer is thoroughly entertained!
In many ways, Deool is a representation of 'Peepli'-like circumstances and the audience is left with the task of picking between the right and the wrong. All in all, entertaining, eye-opening and overwhelming in many ways!
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