Deool (2011)

9/10

Scores in all three departments -Script, Acting and Direction !!!

shrikantbhusari8 April 2012

Warning: Spoilers

In one of the scenes, Nana patekar (bhau) trips over sonali kulkarni(vahini) as he's walking in his home talking on the phone and they turn it in to a fun game (kids play) as Nana is still talking over the phone. The relationship between various characters is so well defined in the movie even though many of them have like a a scene or two.

Girish as Keshya, Nana as bhau, Dilip Prabhavalkar as Anna, Sonali kulkarni as vahini have done splendid job. Girish stands out as lovable and open hearted Keshya who loves talking to Karadi (the cow). I am not going to add the movie summary in the review as it might take the fun away.

What makes this movie really work is its characters. You fell immediately in love with them. Even the smallest roles like 'Audience' (a local guy working in city as audience in reality shows) fit perfectly in the movie. The only thing that should have been avoided was an item song. I would say Lavni would have been more appropriate instead.

Mohan agashe and Naseeruddin Shah have done justice to their cameo.

Full credit to Girish and Umesh for for the script and their eye for the details. Wonderfully written script, brilliantly acted by Marathi's some of the best actors done by a visionary director for a film that will leave an impact.

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9/10

"Sacred" Games !!!

indianature15 May 2021

I had bookmarked Deool on Primevideo. Got around to watching it last night in orig. Marathi w/Eng. Subs.

Deool deserves to be ranked as a Marathi film political classic, ahead of its time. The stellar cast and in fact every actor deliver their respective characters as though to the manor born.

A nondescript village (Mangrul) in what looks very much like a sweeping Satara-esque landscape albeit overgrazed and barren, is the location for this film.

A scruffy looking young man Keshya (Girish Kulkarni) on the lookout for his cow Karde, rests in the shade of a solitary tree. He is startled out of his sleepy reverie with a vision of the three headed Lord Dattatreya. Convinced that it is for real, Keshya races back to his village to announce his revelation. Some in the village are convinced, others take a more rational approach such as the respected Anna (Dilip Prabhavalkar) who assures Keshya that his faith may well have allowed him a vision of his God but it would be better to be quiet about it. The local politician Bhau (Nana Patekar) is encouraged by his MLA boss (Mohan Agashe) to seize this opportunity and make hay while the sun shines. Bhau aided by his supporters - a motley bunch of typical local characters superbly essayed by their respective actors , the lady sarpanch, Bhau's wife, Keshya's girlfriend, the village bhajan mandal and most others, make political and economic capital by building a fancy temple to Lord Dattatreya on the hillock next to the tree where Keshya had his vision, with a special enclosure for the 'holy cow' Karde. They auction the stalls lining the now well paved path to the temple. To cut a long story short, the temple is profitably commercialised; the entire village 'develops' and prospers, making a lot of money with an endless stream of pilgrims coming from far and wide. Mangrul has indeed arrived as a "Sacred" place on the pilgrimage circuit.

The idealistic Anna is disappointed as Bhau chose the temple for political gain instead of the promised hospital project and leaves the village for good. Mohan Agashe and Bhau rise politically. One day, Karde the cow falls ill and soon passes away. Keshya is heartbroken, inconsolable and disillusioned. He steals the idol of Dattatreya and runs away from the village, immersing his God in a far off river before returning home. Nasiruddin Shah appears in a blink and miss moment as a North Indian dacoit taking momentary refuge in some archaeological ruins on the outskirts of Mangrul. He is grateful to Keshya for giving him water.

The last frames show the hugely successful politicians and their supporters leading a huge crowd of pilgrims on a march to the top of the hillock and installing a new flashy idol of Lord Dattatreya .......

The characters are quite real, the story very convincing as indeed several such examples of commercially profitable Sacred places all over India reveal. The shrewd political sub plot is well played, as are the various relationships.

The movie is slow in parts, but other than that it is a well crafted film and deserves much wider publicity with multi language subtitling.

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9/10

Masterpiece

sujay030329 March 2018

Everything about this movie dialogues, lifestyle, songs is a classic timepiece in itself. Well thought and researched play with perfect casting. Not the one to miss.

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10/10

The Temptation

amit_hk200119 November 2011

Warning: Spoilers

I just watched this movie today and even if I have a lot of more important things to do, I cannot resist the temptation of writing the review just now. Because it is a masterpiece.

First and foremost important point about this movie is the director's history. He already owns two ground-breaking creations "The Bull" and "The Well" and this one is no exception.

Although the storyline, as usual, focuses on rustic scenario and the usual rural politics but the story goes beyond that. The story addresses a lot of uncommon issues (uncommon to Marathi films) like "theism versus atheism", "reverence", "commercialization of Holy Places" and most importantly "Revelation of God" in such an elegant way that no one (from Marathi film industry) probably ever tried. The plot, the twists and the gradual evolution of the story is really exquisite. May god bless the writer.

The direction was too good. The way in which both positive and negative effects of the temple are depicted is awesome (and not just simply awesome, but out of the world awesome). In first few scenes, every scene appears to be well crafted. The characters and the plot are presented and evolved at the right pace.

As there were huge number of good actors with not-so-long (long in time) roles, everyone had a limited scope for acting. But I must say that almost everyone lived up to their potential. (I am saying almost because I don't know if the excessive display of expressions in some scenes by Jyoti Subhash was intentional/farcical). Otherwise good acting by everyone and especially good acting by the writer. Again god bless the actor(writer).

There are a few downsides to this movie. The first: the movie has more than required number of humorous punch lines. The second: the background songs. And the third: item number. To someone, it might look like a commercialization of a good movie but I, personally like commercial movies so, it wasn't an issue for me.

In conclusion, I like the movies which address such interesting topics with such an elegant manner.

Oh My God. How can I forget awesome lyrics! That's bad. Yes. The lyrics of all three songs are extraordinarily great. Don't miss (Although the lyrics contain some colloquial phrases and words and folk literature).

So again, it is a great movie to watch. A must watch (at least for Marathi people).

"AJ-E Viewer (read it "As A Viewer")", my rating: 10 (for all good stuff) - 0 (for commercialization of the movie) equals

A complete 10.

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10/10

Wonderful film about commercialization of religion. All 135 minutes are worth your time

JvH482 November 2012

I saw this film as part of the Rotterdam Film Festival 2012. A central theme is what happens when commercialization and politics lay their mostly self serving hands on a religious event. The story opens with the alleged manifestation of a God figure, experienced by a young villager while lying asleep under a tree. He ignores friendly advice to keep it for himself, and a journalist becomes aware of the event. After that it all gets out of control. A temple is built, notwithstanding several wise men insisting that there are better ways to spend the building costs. More and more tourists visit the place. A holy city grows in the middle of the desert, totally overwhelming the once peaceful village.

We observe all this happening as a stepwise process. Clearly, most people take advantage of the growing prosperity, and prefer to ignore the negative side effects. They even conveniently forget that is was God who it was all about. All characters appearing in this film seem true to themselves, and behave natural in their assumed roles. Authenticity as it should be.

Ingenious script, and it works well for the whole 135 minutes running time. The film was never boring, in spite of its relatively slow pace. The latter blends in with the environment, as we see the villagers never do very much, and they seem to enjoy their uncomplicated lives. Also adding to my positive experience was that we hear wonderful music from time to time, that makes very good listening even to our European ears. And last but not least I admired the nice landscapes we get to see.

I don't think it is useful to summarize all characters and their relationships here. You see them appear at appropriate moments, without overwhelming the viewer, regardless of their vast number. The core theme is very obvious: the commercialization of religion in combination with how an insignificant event gets hijacked by politicians. Everyone seems to grow and prosper as a result, so who cares?

Finally, I'm not sure I understood the (hidden?) meaning of the final scene. We see a looter, visibly wounded, approach from a distance. In my opinion it suggests a 2nd coming. Maybe someone to clean out the whole godless mess that the village had become. But I'm speculating now.

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10/10

Amazing movie making

popale-pradeep9 March 2012

I normally don't write movie reviews, but after watching this movie I was compelled to write one because this movie is a masterpiece. This movie nicely depicts village life in India where people are blindly following modern lifestyle without considering its negative effects. And importantly it shows how the politics and God's business is combined by few for material gains. It also shows peoples obsession with putting their kids in English medium schools. Movie also shows how there is no point in providing reservations based on gender as ultimately males only try to dominate. As in this movie there is a women Sarpanch 'head of village council', but she is under complete dominance of local male leader. Overall this movie does a good job in showing how the socioeconomic scenario is changing in Indian villages. Actors have done a good job, even led character got national award of 'Best actor'. This is a must watch movie.

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9/10

Unbelievably marvelous

manishmsawant7 August 2020

Warning: Spoilers

When I watched the movie for the first time, I never considered about it much, as I don't have any knowledge I was too young to understand the concept. Now I am old to know facts and situation around, I can't believe that the writer can able to consider all the factors lies around. He pointed out every single aspect that affects in faith and superstition. He did it well, actors are great! Director did his job to some excellent level. And DOP used all his skill and done some successful experiments with camera. Please, watch it with open eyes (mind)..