Fandry

Wow great movie I saw this in ilInternational Film Festival of Kerala. I personally got a chance to congratulate the director. Such a great movie. Shows how dalits are being treated in society. The man's invention of so called caste, making people uneducated. Its a clear cut of how people are being treated in India due to man's so called invention of caste.

Regional cinema in India (that excludes Bollywood and the big mainstream Tamil and Telugu movies) occasionally yields little gems like this flick. I heard of it on a news program towards the end of 2014 - the anchor was listing her favorites from the year gone by and she mentioned this as a must-watch inter-caste school love story. That is not quite accurate - the love is deep but one-sided, unrequited, and as one realizes early on, rather hopeless. A low- caste school boy is smitten by the pretty high caste girl that he sees in school every day but centuries of caste stigma are not easily shaken off by sharing the same classroom. The low caste family is routinely humiliated and called upon to trap the wild pigs that roam the village - the rest of the villagers consider the pigs unclean and any contact with the pigs impure. The boy rages against the caste trap and his own father for forcing him to take part in trapping pigs. The movie unfolds slowly for most of its running time, and the high caste characters are almost caricatures in their cruel callousness. Yet, the movie comes alive with a brutal brilliance in the last 10 minutes as shame and fury collide within the tormented boy in an explosive climax. The very last scene is like a punch in the stomach as the raging boy seems to hurl a stone at the audience itself for being mute spectators to injustice.

A must watch movie. I really love the climax portion. I appreciate the director for taking this type of story.

When Fandry was released in 2013, it was critically acclaimed. I did not get chance to watch it then.

I saw Sairat, and later when Dhadak was released - I revisited Sairat and while reading about the Director Nagraj Manjule - came again across his first feature length film - Fandry.

The story is about 13 year old adolescents boy Jabya's dream - his unrequited LOVE towards Shalu, a girl studying with him. And Jabya's dis-interest in his untouchable lower caste's based role his father Kachru plays in the village doing menial jobs. The story eloquently leads us to the final set-up where embarrassed Jabya has to give a hand to his father to catch a piglet in front of his school mates inside a garbage ground.

It is an utterly heart-wrenching tale of realization of broken dreams of LOVE in front of whole village, especially in front of the girl who too laughs are the family's endeavors of catching a pig; where people humiliate and playfully laugh and make fun of Jabya.

After watching Fandry I also watched a short film of the director Nagraj - Pistulya (10 minutes short film)

Few things stand out as Director Nagraj Manjule's trademarks -

• His movies portrays his personal experiences of life,
• There is an angle of LOVE,
• The movies are based in smaller towns and villages,
• the protagonists are mostly new and unknown faces who are drawn into acting,
• There is social issues highlighted in the movie - castes, discrimination, honor killing, education
• The movies are a good mix of lighter moments,
• The music of the movies is good,
• The movies are made with much sensitiveness,
• One can see the glimpses of great master at work,
• It looks evident that a lot of work has been done at the script (writing) stage,
• There are moments in the movie that are heart wrenching,
• The endings of all the three movies are tragic

All the lead characters of the movie have enacted their roles beautifully. Applause to Somanth Awghade who plays Jabya and Kishore Kadam who plays Jabya's father Kachru.

The movie has won several awards including the National Award for best debut director and child artist.

The movie's cinematography is worth mentioning which has been captured with great still shots reminding us of internationally acclaimed directors like Terrence Mallick with sensibilities of Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali. The use of symbolism in beautifully interwoven with the flow of the script.

Director Manjule too has also done a small cameo as a mentor of Jabya. I will recommend this movie whole-heartedly. It was a stepping stone for Manjule to come out with the commercial block-buster Sairat - without compromising on the theme and his movie making style.

Great watch - Go, find FANDRY from somewhere - it is on Netflix too and watch it. The movie will change the way you look at life.

(I will go with 7.75 out of 10)

Cast issue is very less adressed. Not much shown but it's all there if u want to see u can see otherwise u can't see the cast in the society. Cast is the main issue in Indian society and nobody talks about it because it is a part of normal life of Indian people.

And I think the last stone which the boy throws is to us, 'the society'