This Manjha comes with a sharp edge
54. That is the number of films that I and two of my co-jury members watched in just five days at the 10th Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short & Animation films (MIFF). The festival was held over seven days, from February 3 to 9, but the films in the Indian competition section (in which I served on the critics jury chosen by the Indian chapter of the International Federation of Film Critics – FIPRESCI – along with Uma da Cunha from Mumbai and M K Raghabendra from Bangalore) were screened from the 4th to the 8th. Of these 40 were documentaries, nine short fiction films and five animation films. We had a tough task at hand, since we were mandated to give out only one award – I personally felt it was a great injustice to the films as we had to select the winner from among three different genres of filmmaking, none of which can be compared with the other two for obvious reasons. The main jury had a much better task at hand, as they had an array of awards to give out for all the three genres.
The critics jury gave its award to Vinod Raja’s Mahua Memoirs, a hard-hitting, investigative film that exposes how big-moneyed MNCs are virtually breaking every possible law of the land, with the government almost deliberately looking the other way, to carry out exploitation of mineral resources deep within protected forest areas in the tribal belts of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand.
But here, I am not writing about this film. Instead, I want to introduce all of us to Manjha, a Marathi-Hindi short fiction film directed by Rahi Anil Barve. This 27-year-old director’s B&W film won two top awards – the best film award in the fiction category and the IDPA award for the best first film by a director. It was not surprising to see it winning these two awards. Barve’s 40-minute film deserves every ounce of the praise it got at the festival, despite its loud background score and somewhat tardy ending.
Even then, Barve has shown why he should be a man to watch out for. Shot in darker tones even for a B&W film, the camerawork by Pankaj Kumar is highly interesting, adding to the film’s mood. Barve has taken up a dark subject – of child molestation – in his very first film, and the way he has plunged head on into it is quite outstanding. I don’t remember the name of the child actor who played Ranka, a street orphan all of ten years old. He makes manjha (well, we all have flown kites sometime or the other, isn’t it?) for a living, and he has to take care of his three-year-old little sister Chimi, who is somewhat mentally challenged. The guy is simply too good, confidently mouthing the street lingo – not of the Hindi cinema kind but the kind one would actually hear from such homeless kids surviving on the streets of big cities – and making the rough-and-tough character enactment seem an easy thing to do.
A mentally-disturbed cop – disturbed because he had been abused by his father as a child – gets friendly with Ranka and takes Chimi on the pretext of buying her some sweets, only to sexually abuse her. Ranka finds her next morning at a construction site, lying half-dead, and the cop goes on to explain to him that such things keep happening, especially if it has to be with people of his kind of background, and it is best to forget about it and move on with life. But Ranka knows he has to protect his sister from monsters like the cop, and he takes his revenge, in the process losing whatever little innocence he has as a child. This more or less is the film’s storyline, but the execution of the subject shows Barve is on firm ground.
The film, made in SP Beta, is too dark for comfort sometimes, but he has not let the mood slip even for once, and that is where he has succeeded as a director. How many times do we see a film with a dark mood suddenly losing its way thanks to our propensity to squeeze in that so-called audience-pampering item number. Yes, it is easy not to waver in the short fiction format, and I don’t know if Barve would be able to show this uncompromising streak when he makes his first and subsequent feature films, but I hope he does. I would wait for this guy to come up with his next work. It’s a pity that we cannot get to watch this kind of short films in our theatres, and have to depend on festivals to access them. Catch this film if you get a chance.
Tags: Cinematography, Direction, Documentary, Marathi
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
finished last night
‘this charming girl’ (korean)
this is something ….
quote – Vinod Raja
quote – Instead, I want to introduce all of us to Manjha, a Marathi-Hindi short fiction film directed by Rahi Anil Barve. – unquote
subject child molestation – this alone is enough to prove that director is daring – not for me.
molester was also molested in his childhood – too cliched – hollywoodian.
better no reason would have been given. why try to justify. he is a molester. finished. take it as it is. who is the subject, child or the inspector. it also is oversimplification.
shot in black and white – trying hard.
true art is easy.
:-??
Utpal…let us know of the ways all these little gems can be seen by people across the nation..you guys must have discussed some things there at the fest…I am interested personally..I am thinking of some new and exciting entertainment options..let me know!!
@Vishrant
“they will generate employment in undeveloped areas of india. this will improve the quality of life of the people of this reason. this will be a step towords iradication of poverty”
at the cost of increasing corruption?:-?
what is more important. a human life or an idea of corruption.
its guru effect. did guru was wrong, in making money. and for that he has to brake the rules. because rules won’t permint.
humanity has long been sacrifiging man on the alter of ideas. in the name of nationalism, in the name religion, in the name of caste, in the name of pride. and what not.
now we should here to Chandidas.
’sabar uper manus satya, tahar uper naahien.’
above all is the truth of man.
:x
I believe Manjha is a very good film if not great.
Hi..
I am Rahi Anil Barve here..director of manjha..
honestly- thanks…for both positive and worst responces.
-the only qstn i keep asking to myself while shooting this film was..why the hell i am making this when i knw that finally i am going to end up watching this film alone on my PC.few friends may be..but i made it.it was a need.
after t film was over,i hated it.i felt failed with the last part.(still feel so..)in that rage i deleted everything,all eep.max files,entr footage..sfx’s,one last low res. rough edit i thrown in a backup was thr for more thn a year.recently i send it to miff 08.
now i am getting back to film making again.
so-thats t reason..thanks.
welcome,
Rahi Anil Barve saab,
if your short has done the festival circuit. Can we host it here on pfc for all to see?? or are you looking for a commercial realease?
it wont finally end up being watched just by u and friends on a PC at least..
‘ Manjha ‘undoubtedly was one of the most adorable film of MIFF -08 !
Some people found it too raw / crude .. ! Even those people who dint have courage to digest the rawness..or the thick skinned people… even they had goosebumps while watching the film!
As of me…i watched no work as appealing as this film in recent times!
For those who have missed the film ,catch teh trailor @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e2z8MssH5I
peace n joy
dr gaurav
Hey..i caught this film yesterday and well i was left stunned…the film breaks through all barriers of what u really need to learn in order to make a flm…It somehow reminded my of Darren Afroneskey’s PI…not meaning to take anything away from the film…but just cause it just shows how you dont really need excellent colours and always technically right shots to make a film… The director did an excellent job not for a minute did i feel as if there was somethign draggy..excellent job Kudos
May be a really basic question but wanna know how does one read the complete profile of any author here. For instance I came to this page (from the above article ) – http://passionforcinema.com/author/utpal/ to know more about the author and the profile seems incomplete. There’s no link for any continuity…Happens nearly for all the profiles…Whats the prob…
i hvnt seen this film u guys tlkd abt,but i was just checking slumdog millionaires blue ray dvd release.WOW.unblvble.
- this film must be something.u wont belive guys,
its coming as a special feature in all slumgog’s worldwide blue ray- dvd rls.