Jaggi

I just recently discovered this film randomly, out of the blue through Mubi recommendation and I was completely blown away by the story, screenplay, acting, dialogues and direction.

The movie is a poignant tale of a school dropout kid named Jaggi. He is impotent and through a very casual discussion in school with his classmate, he discusses his problem. He is immediately labelled as gay and what happens next forms the crux of the story.

The movie by all means is a very important film for everyone to watch. It's a brilliant debut for a director with keen sense of human masculinity and how society generally behaves with people with such conditions. It focuses on the male toxicity and the cliched Punjabi Machismo boldly on screen. This movie is based on a true story and absolutely real, raw and gut-wrenching.

The titular character Jaggi, brilliantly and sensitively played by Ramnish Chaudhary is highly commendable and we can only wish and pray that he gets more such amazing roles in the future.

He's truly a star in the making.

And as the end credits roll, I wish Jaggi had a loving family, good set of friends, was well understood and some help and therapy was given to him to overcome the abuse, trauma that he endured growing up as a child. The movie takes the viewer deep into the rabbit hole that Jaggi endured (With an insanely unsettling and repeated soundtrack) that stays with you until the end and shakes your core completely.

Special mention to Pardeep taina for capturing the realism of the horrors of the world of Jaggi through his incredible camera work.

We often complain that good, meaningful cinema does not come out of India. We often praise content-based Iranian, French or Korean movies for their depth. There exists a Punjabi movie that surpasses those Iranian, French or Korean movies. Jaggi. It's a shining example of good cinema. Very true to the human condition.

A YouTube channel about OTT content highly recommended it so I decided to give it a try. After a long day, I started to watch it in bed, expecting balle-balle, sarso ke khet mein romance, Lamborghini, branded clothes, loud comedy and unrealistic action. I had thought I would stop watching it after 5 minutes and go to sleep. But right the first shot hooked me. I could not put down the tab until the movie got over.

Everything about it is brilliant - writing, direction, camerawork, editing, acting - you name it. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised how well the camera-crew has filmed whole scenes in one shot. The opening scene is a 5-minute long shot, the camera moves with the actors even as they are on a motorcycle. Acting is so good that it doesn't feel you are watching a movie, it feels like you are watching actual incidents captured on CCTV camera.

Writing this review is my attempt to make people aware of this movie. It's a pity that such gems go unnoticed.

This brave and fascinating film was not what I'd have expected to come out of India. That it did gives me hope that the societal mores are loosening in a more liberal direction despite the bleakness of the subject matter of the film.

There are two strands that we can see in the drama. The first is the perversion of human relationships and sexuality caused by artificial local conventions that have been engendered by religion. The other is the personal story of a country boy suffering from erectile disfunction or who is asexual and his subsequent life of being used by other boys as he's mistaken for being gay. That we know from the IMDb storyline. No one understands his problem. Not the village boys, not his parents, no one.

Horror is piled on horror; how could anyone bear such dreadful hurts that he is subjected to? The climax of the film shows that it's impossible to carry on after the catalyst of a proposed forced marriage.

The actors and actresses playing the roles were uniformly excellent despite their seeming lack of history on film sites. The dialogue was apt and the subtitles good. As a glimpse into the darker side of rural life in the Punjab this couldn't be bettered especially as the subject is so taboo and rarely touched on.

This is a definite recommend.

Just finished the movie and it sent shiver down my spine. The only question that I have is - why this movie is not more popular it deserves so much hype.

I have done my education from Punjab and was totally able to relate the environment of the school, the concept of toxic masculinity has been shown brilliantly in the movie and its feel so real at times.

All the actors were brilliant, in the entire movie my heart just wants to save Jaggi from the toxic family and all the people around him. This movie will made you question - Why do people have kids when they don't know how to raise them. I wish there is a law that prohibits incapable people from having kids.

I hope this movie do creates at least some awareness.