16^th Third Eye Asian Film Festival: V

Open Forum, a festival tradition, was held at the 16th Third Eye Asian Film Festival too, on six of the eight days. It was thoughtfully scheduled between 2 and 3 pm, December 22-27, a slot when no films were being screened. Santosh Pathare of Prabhat Film Society moderated. Compared to the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Open Forum here was confined to an interaction with the cast/directors/producers of films screened on earlier day(s). Santosh, who is fluent in Marathi and conversant with English and Hindi too, spoke to these diverse film personalities in turns, seminar/conference style. Unfortunately, I could barely attend two or, rather, one-and-a-half. Sudhir Nandgaonkar, the festival director, egged me on to pose questions, but there wasn’t enough time for Pathare to throw the floor open for audience questions.

TEAFF is organised by the Asian Film Foundation and P.L. Deshpande Maharashtra Kala Academy, and co-organised by Prabhat Chitra Mandal and Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Chitrapat Mahamandal. It is supported by Department of Culture, Government of Maharashtra. Screenings are held at Ravindra Natya Mandir Mini Auditorium, Mumbai. It follows that Marathi films occupy a large space in the package of movies chosen. On Christmas day, I watched Nati Khel and on the day after, Nadi Vahate. Later, I also caught Barayan and Copy.

Let me get Barayan out of the way and then talk about the other three.

Barayan, 2018

Nandgaonkar, not given to frivolity, introduced the story-writer/director, Deepak Patil, after saying that there was no such word as ‘Barayan ‘in the Marathi language, and asked Patil to explain its meaning. Patil revealed that he had coined the word to go with ‘Ramayan’, the Hindu epic about Lord Rama. Bara means ‘twelve’ in Marathi, and in his film, twelve stood for the examination conducted at class XII level, at the end of students’ twelfth academic year.

(The Maharashtra education system currently functions in the X+II+III format, with ten years in school, two years in junior college, and another three years in regular degree college. To move on and get admission to higher levels, students have to pass the two Board exams, Xth and XIIth, with high percentages. All other years involve internal exams, conducted by the school or junior college, and are, more often than not, high-scoring formalities).

Barayan deals with various issues related to the XIIth examination and the huge stress it creates in entire families, not only the students. To try and make sure that the student makes the cut, families turn to coaching classes, most of which are money-making machines, charging fees that are many times more than the college fees the students pay. Patil observed that little has changed since he himself went through the Baravi exam years ago, and even today, as the twelfth examination date draws near, it is a testing time for (a million) families in Maharashtra. He has set his tale in the Konkan region of this western state of India, which has a large coastline that stretches from Mumbai to Goa.

If one does not perform in this crucial year, then that’s the end of his/her career. Traditional mindset of Maharashtrian society is that Medical studies or Engineering are the only two major education stream options for a stable and lucrative career. The story of the film revolves around incidents based on this one year in the life of the protagonist, and his journey to engineering college after that.

At 152 loud minutes, the film is way too long. (As I post this, a page on the Internet informs me that the length is 130 minutes only. If true, this 22-minute trimming will be the best thing that has happened to the film). The main characters include a teacher, called “Teacher” by his wife, and their 17 years-ish boy, a neighbour duo of father and son who run an allopathic pharmacy but the old man sings praise of the alternate ancient Indian medical system of Ayurveda, motley/caricature teachers, headmasters, professors, conductors of a coaching class called XXX, the obligatory stereo-typical Muslim car mechanic and the Godman who charges by the minute. There is some genuine humour which is overshadowed by the over-the-top and infantile variety, often using mimicry of popular Hindi film-stars to play to the gallery. Halfway through, when it became as stressful as the baravi exam, I left the theatre for greener pastures.