Three years after Fandry, a film pulsating with rage against untouchability, Nagraj Manjule’s latest offering is a gem called Sairat. The raw and edgy Fandry — a village boy’s awakening to the brutalities of casteism — had signalled the arrival of a director who would empower voices rarely heard in mainstream cinema. Yet he wouldn’t sermonise the audience to sleep. Sairat with its familiar trope of star-crossed lovers, chase scenes, song-and-dance sequences, slo-mo shots, generous doses of humour and picturesque locales has the right amount of masala to lull your senses. It is, after all, a familiar terrain, you would think. You are wrong, horribly wrong! Sairat jolts you when you least expect it. In those few moments, Manjule gives you a taste of the violent realities playing out in the form of honour killings and the simmering inter-caste hatred that puts them in perspective.
The opening scene is of a village cricket match peppered with Manjule’s tongue-and-cheek commentary. Bitter Village team’s captain-cum-star batsman, Parshya (Akash Thosar) has disappeared from the field to secretly watch the girl he is madly in love with. He returns just in time to play the saviour. The son of a fisherman and the brightest boy in the class, Parshya is head-over-heels for the village headman’s daughter Archi (Rinku Rajguru). Love blooms between a poor boy and a rich, upper caste girl when Archi reciprocates. She is a tough cookie who rides a Royal Enfield Bullet to school and drives a tractor on the first date. Her family’s fierce opposition forces the couple to elope and the backdrop shifts from the lush surroundings of the village to a sprawling urban slum and its gut-wrenching filth. Cinematographer Sudhakar Reddy makes brilliant use of Maharashtra’s rural landscape to mirror the contrast. The couple rebuild their lives. In due course, a child is born and the family saves up enough to buy a flat. Through a meticulously planned narrative, Manjule touches upon the innocence and daring of love in the face of hate, the muscle and money power of the local politician, and the khap panchayat’s stranglehold on the lives of villagers. What Manjule builds brick-by-brick with little details scattered throughout the film explodes in the face of the viewer in the last scene. He wants the audience to drop their guard so that he can strike when he deems fit. This is where the art of telling takes centre stage — how the writer-director, despite using a done-to-death template and downright commercial elements, pulls off an evocative film. Sairat wants to push viewers out of their comfort zone and bring them face-to-face with life’s gruesome aspects. The impact is further accentuated with a powerful background score by composers Ajay and Atul. The use of Hollywood’s Symphony Orchestra for a film set in a village and a slum is quite innovative.
Sairat’s remarkable find is the dusky Rinku Rajguru who is sterling as the fearless Archi. Manjule has gone in for a role-reversal to challenge gender stereotypes and yet imbued the character with vulnerabilities to keep it real. Far away from home, the gutsy Archi breaks down a few times as she grapples with a life of hardships. She misses home and the comforts she was born into. A debutant, only in her teens, Rinku shows uncommon maturity in handling a complex role, overshadowing Akash Thosar in the process.
Sairat has enriched Marathi cinema. Sometimes, it takes an outsider like Manjule to shake things up.
The author is a senior assistant editor; @ghoshwhowalks
