Ventilator Marathi Movie Review
This is an universal movie with a medical title with the characters conversing in Marathi. Yes it is about an ailing patient and it is about relationships. But it is about how people react and the changes our bloodlines shows when money is involved.
This could happen anywhere, to anyone and is not restricted to the Marathi speakers.
Gajanan Kamerkar suffers a brain hemorrhage. He is the Gajju Kaka and all hell breaks loose. All relatives from Konkan village want to meet him, want to be seen and see him and pray for the postponement of his demise because the Ganapati festival is just a week away.
They all have their reasons to visit him. They have opinions about the condition of the family member and more so about the promises of property distribution that he had made. His immediate family consists of a son with political ambitions, a daughter considered lucky and a wife. This aunt is someone we can relate too. Someone who has no one to talk and share her husband’s condition is a topic people around show interest in and she seems to thrive in talking about it in a loop.
The movie is not a fixed story line. The reactions and the actions of the people form the story line and take it forward. Raja is the central focus point. Played beautifully and subtly by Ashutosh, the fame reaches before he does. People need to be part of his life even if there has not been any contribution whatsoever from them.
He is lost, happy, sad, frustrated and yes he is shocked and he has a difficult relation with his father the patients brother. The difficulty and the reasons unfold as the movie progresses and ultimately in the end it is resolves into the father son relation it always was and meant to be.
The movie makes light of a very serious situation. This is humor in tragedy. The first half clinches the votes for the movie. Every character is sketch and has a place complete with opinions, arguments in local dialect and importantly the want to be part of the action.
There is the aunt who sells her products to the ready audience, an aunt in sleeveless celebrating her anniversary, the henpecked husband, the wannabe actor and neighbor, the clown of a cousin, the sincerity of outsiders and even gender discrimination.
Boman Irani is brilliant as usual and lovable as the doctor. His explanation almost makes us want him to a real doctor.
Priyanka Chopra has produced the movie and has a itsy bitsy but sweet role in the movie as herself.
The second half has its tears and emotions especially of the home coming of the son of the patient. The director has captured the characteristics of each character. Look at the way the staff calls the patient a body even before the person of plugged off the ventilator.
This movie is about the web of relations about the changes the relations undergo with NRI’s relatives, local uncles, old and lonely uncles, the honest cousin who may seem like a clown but is as clean as slate in his heart. But they can never leave the togetherness.
Watch the movie. You may have seen this unfold in and may have overlooked in real life. Watch it to appreciate how uncomplicated stories can be turned into classic movies and make the local films a huge hit. . Watch it to appreciate a excellent observation and great production values from Rajesh Mapuskar and Priyanka Chopra.
