Gabhricha Paus: The Damned Rain – My IFFLA’09 Experience
iView Author: Anand Samant (Fullerton, CA USA)
Email: anandsamant[at]gmail[dot]com
Gabhricha Paus: The Damned Rain – My IFFLA’09 Experience
P.S: This is not a review of the movie but an attempt to share with others about me, my journey to IFFLA and my impression about the movie
Going slightly back into my past, being born in 1982 got exposed to few good movies and numerous bad ones. By 1992 I had lost faith in Indian (Bollywood at that time) movies and its music. I hardly watched any new movie, but the summer spent in Belgaum changed it all. My cousin gave me a cassette of Roja. The clarity and the diversity of the music instruments used in the songs blew me away. At first, I did not like the tunes (may be because they were in Tamil and myself being from Maharashtra) but the music grew over me and I still listen to those songs. I watched Roja, loved it, and decided to watch all movies from Mani Ratnam. More research led to people like RGV. Then came Satya, Hyderabad blues which showed me people like Anurag Kashyap, Saurabh Shukla, Paresh Rawal, Nagesh Kukunoor exist and from then my faith is getting stronger each coming day.
In India, I always wanted to attend a festival, watch movies from all over the world while getting away from Bollywood style movies. Saying all this, I never attended a film festival; money being one of the major factors. Studying engineering and a college like Father Agnels Vashi (Infamous for being a Jail) did not help the matters either. But now, with a close proximity to LA, I decided to attend IFFLA. I picked Gabhricha Paus because of the subject and it being in my mother tongue. It was also a chance for me to watch a marathi movie on a big screen after a long time.
Thursday the 23rd : Considering the LA traffic, I left my office at 4:55pm. Reached my friends place at 5:35pm and we were on our way to Arclight Cinemas. We entered CA-60W and were greeted by 10-20mph traffic. GPS reported 13 incidents on the way and the traffic to continue for most of the 28 miles. Everything seemed impossible but fortunately the traffic opened up only after 6 miles and we were roaming around the Arclight cinemas at 6:45pm. We entered the cinema hall at 7. The hall was empty and looked smaller than the ones normally seen. At 7:30, director and the producer were introduced and the movie followed with a full house.
The movie starts with two kids going around the village. One on the bicycle while other running behind asking for a chance to ride it himself. The scene continues until they come across a man hanged on the tree branch. This scene strikes you and gets straight to the point, i.e., suicides of the farmers. The film then introduces to a family comprised of a couple, their kid and a grandma whose husband also had given up his life. Film basically deals with this family and how their psychic works with suicides happening all around. The wife played by Sonali Kulkarni fears that her husband might also suicide. Grandma played by Jyoti Subhash understands her daughter-in-law’s concern and helps her. She is the most understanding person in the family. The kid is innocent still clever and very loyal to his mother. Husband played by Girish Kulkarni, is the one in complex state of mind. He is the sole bread winner of the family and wants to do his best even in the critical situation. In addition to these characters, there are people introduced who affect the main characters. Patil who gives up farming, spends time sleeping, giving advice to others and listening to music. Sonali’s friend whose husband hangs himself while there is also the cotton trader who has given loan to Kisna.
Although the theme of the movie is quite serious, there are many lighter moments. These moments are situational and only help the flow of the movie. Music is phenomenal and compliments the feel of the movie. The lyrics explain the situation of the farmers with great conviction. Editing is top notch, never does a scene looks prolonged and helps the storyline move swiftly. All the actors have lived their parts to perfection especially the Kisna family. The film moves you, makes you think, makes you feel helpless and educates you about the grim situation which is still present till date.
In the end, audience had a Q & A with the director which educated me more about the subject and the director. All I can say is, the movie achieves what it is made for. This is a must watch.
I also met Nishikant Kamat while I was leaving and he explained the movie in simple words “honest film” which completely justifies the effort. Watch it whenever possible.
Suggested Reading:
Gabhricha Paus(The Damned Rain) is Brilliant! - Film Review by Kartik Krishnan
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Zordaar baghayla laagnaar!
Zordaar !!!! Captain Zordaar
i think this movie should be released in Maharashtra right now…No other movies to compete with n also riding on the success of Mee Shivaji Raje Bhonsale Boltoy..i guess this is the best possible time for it to release…but this will happen only if the distributors agree to release it…if they have some sense they shud understand that this is the best time to release ‘Gabhricha Paus’
so true Rasik…this is the best time…but what I heard from Q and A session with the producer is that he is struggling to find distributors…
how about mahesh manjrekar backing this project…also his movie depicts the plight of common man…hoping for the best…
@anand, nice to read about your experience, thanks for sharing.will try and catch hold of this film, looking at the rave reviews of it on the site and elsewhere.
Really hoping a man like Mahesh Manjerakar does back the project…also at the V. Shantaram Puraskar gabhricha paus walked away with most of the major awards….dis works in its favour even more…