Made in China (2009)
The economic policies of the government in 1992 changed a lot for many Indian. From a developing country in the 80s, India saw itself transforming into a super power. The cities grew and India realized the power of the brains of its citizen. The next 15 years changed the way Indians lived with the economy riding the software wave.
The world realized the buying power of the Indian middle-class. Nothing was foreign. All the major brands were available at a price in India. An economy which heavily depended on agriculture now relied on Software export and manufacturing. The standard of living improved considerably.
And somewhere along the way, the farmers faced a downturn. In the years of “India Shinning”, we somehow left the farmers out of the dream. Hundreds of farmers killed themselves after finding themselves in debt and unable to pay them.
The Marathi movie “Made in China” (MiC) is not about those farmers. Its about those farmers who went ahead against the odd and adopted technology to prosper in agriculture. The farmers are happy being their own boss and prospering too.
Everything changes when the elected politician proposes a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) area on the agricultural land rendering most of the farmers landless. The model adopted is the same as adopted in China, where villages were cleared to accommodate modern industrial township which became a model in itself supported by cheap labor of farmers who had lost their land.
The name of the movie is derived from that concept.
A question of development becomes a question of survival for the farmers. Supporting the politician is his daughter, who thinks that industrialization is the only hope to accelerate development and his nephew who supports his uncle to support his own spendthrift ways.
Opposing the politicians are the farmers, a local village leader who owns a chain of stores selling agricultural goods and his other nephew who had worked and used modern technology to make the place a green belt.
The story is about the struggle between the minority but influential money-powered India which sees the country in terms of large glass offices supplying cheap technology labor to the world and between the majority, cash-strapped India which strives to survive in schemes which are designed by people who never understand them.
MiC questions the cost of development and the effect of development on majority of Indians.
MiC deals with a very serious issue where the gap between the rich and poor is widening. It questions Indians who live in modern glass houses and are far away from the realities of majority Indians.
To a certain extent, it does succeed to put the question effectively. However the first half and second half appear totally unconnected as the first half is drama about the struggle of the farmers while the second half becomes a murder mystery which climaxes into a hurried but appropriate ending.
MiC does not offer any solution neither it is an anti-development movie. It tries to ask questions about finding a balance between the new and old India and how development could and can reach all strata of the society.
The drama in the first half falters in the second half with the story moving toward a hurried climax. I would have liked the story to maintain the route it took in the first half and not deviate to become a thriller. But as the makers promoted it as a political thriller, it was a well-thought move.
The movie has some good actors including Sandeep Kulkarni who excelled in “Dombivli Fast“. Here too, he delivers as Mohit, the nephew of the politician who opposes his uncle’s SEZ plan.
Milind Gunaji plays the spendthrift nephew. Milind is a good actor but he is typically typecast in similar roles for a long time. This role is no different like the countless roles he had done before this. I think he is still an underutilized actor who plays the typical villainous Thakur kind of role. I remember him way back in Sai Paranjpe’s “Papeehaa”. Sadly the movie is lost in time. Wonder if I could get it anywhere.
Another actor, Upendra Limaye who plays the local politician also does similar roles. A lot of talent remains untapped as they are typecast into the same role again and again.
Mrunal Kulkarni plays the wife of Milind Gunaji and is Ok. Madhura Velankar as the opportunist daughter of the politician is good. Dr. Sharad Bhutadiya as the politician is good too. The talented cast provides fantastic support to the script and movie.
Although it has a great cast, the characters are somewhat cliched liked the lady inspector investigating the Politician’s murder or the business tycoon who was shown as typical villain manipulating people for his own good. .
Santosh Kolhe is the director and handles the story well. There is one item song in the movie which was at all not needed but maybe it was a commercial requirement.
MiC is a good movie which targets the changing social scenario of rural India and opens a lot of aspects for debate. Its quite commendable to see Marathi movie touching such a social cause and still making a entertaining commercial movie.
However the movie is poorly promoted. I can hardly find theatres in Mumbai showing this movie. I caught the movie in Kolhapur recently. Also with Internet as a very cheap and effective promotional medium, it was surprising to find not many sites promoting the movie and nor does it have a website of its own. Its time quality Marathi movies get promoted in a bigger way.
A worthy watch indeed!
Rating: 7.5/10
Tags: agriculture, Farmers, made in china, Maharahstra, Marathi, MLA, SEZ
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
bravo! will watch when i can.
yes a must watch…btw Mr. Kolhe, hopefully producers understand that item numbers are not a necessity…dombivli fast, shwas, vastupurush, dahavi pha n many more…did not have item numbers but still were hits…
Think this movie won some awards recently, no? Not that it means anything but thats how I heard the name. Sounds interesting. Thanks for the post.
Yeah even I was confused with the movie’s title when I got to know of the movie’s release.Yes a little bit of promotion can always help a movie like this for sure.