Note: No spoilers
Sairat was a blockbuster movie made by Director Nagraj Manjule. But much before this commercial success Manjule was a widely known name for people who follow off-beat, non-mainstream movies, due to his National Film Award winning short film Pistulya.
I want to talk about his second movie, Fandry, which is a longer film and hence gives the director much time to explore his themes. If you have watched Manjule's interview his background is a preoccupation for him. Moving to urban centres like Mumbai and Pune allowed him to gain a more objective perspective on these issues. Fandry is story a Dalit boy probably twelve or so of age and his discovery about his position in his world through his first experience of love.
Jhabya (Jambhuvant,) the protagonist, belongs to the Kaikadi caste, and falls in love with an upper caste girl, Shalu. Although the movie is in Marathi, the Kaikadi language is spoken in some parts. The word "Fandry" means pig in the Kaikadi language. (Passing thought: These indigenous languages, some of which have been carried on simply through an oral tradition, must be preserved.)
As difficult as it is to make an unsubtle in-your-face movie as one can make, Manjule chooses the poet's path and let's his imagery do half the work for him. What Manjule also manages to capture is the silence of the rural parts of India. Noise is such a major component of urban living, where most movies are made, that it seeps into our movies too. However, rural living is made of silences, where a fair or even a rattling tractor can stir up the ambience.
One can see the resonance of Sairat in this story yet this simply told story is far cry from the drama of Sairat. Manjule's signature use of locale, as seen in Sairat, and his use of background music is already in development in this movie. The way this movie differs from Sairat is, Fandry is very rooted in the issues, drama never takes a precedence over the narrative but still it is not dry and authoritative, you invest in the character as an audience.
Again full marks to the casting, Somnath Awaghade in his naive dignity becomes a wonderful Jhabya and Rajeshwari Kharat as the elusive Shalu, fit and fill into the atmosphere, while veterans like Kishore Kadam must have enjoyed this creative challenge. Overall, I think Fandry and Pistulya must have been more creatively satisfying as works of art, compared to Sairat, which may have been a cathartic experiment about the influence of Bollywood.
