Eeb Allay Ooo!

Came across this movies on YouTube as part of an Online Global Film Festival. It was a moving experience to say the least.

This is a story of a young man who arrived in Delhi recently to make his career. He lands a job that even 99.99% of Indians haven't even heard of - A monkey repeller in Delhi. A guy whose sole job is to scare off the monkeys from Delhi's government (or elite) buildings and public areas mimicking certain set of voices that form the title of the movie.

Witty, comical and original; this movie introduced me to some characters I had never imagined existed in real life. In these COVID times when problems of migrant crisis and unemployment are headlines in our country, the timing for this movie couldn't have been better.

It was almost ironic that the protagonist had all the good ideas of stopping the monkeys from causing havoc, but the complex web of various facets of our system wouldn't let him execute those ideas. You are good at your job and that's precisely you fear you'll lose it - Imagine that !!

The narrative about his pregnant sister's family also had a profound impact on me. It is not that her security guard husband or she is in a situation an Indian is totally new to, but the brutally realistic cinematography, perfect background score and life-like characters leave a imprint on your mind that makes you think about all those news articles you read about migrants or labourers. The themes of religion, politics, corruption and mob-lynching are also handled, without being pedantic, very delicately by the director.

I am still processing this movie in my head after it ended, and that is because I could experience it intimately - I think that's a kind of an effect only a brilliant piece of art can cause. Without being didactic and never losing its entertainment value, the director has certainly achieved what he set out to do. Kudos to him. I truly wish we see this kind of cinema even more in India. Best luck !!

Maybe I'm quibbling over the definition of a word, but I thought this excellent film was a drama and a human interest story told with some humor and societal observations. I didn't think of it as satire at all. You want satire? Try Arjun Patiala, which spoofs almost every Indian cop movie ever made. Sorry to disagree with the other reviewers, mostly Indian and who must know better than I.

Gives a tour of a lower income people's journey to make ends meet. The funny parts are the ones trying to chase the monkeys. Overall very slow for modern day OTT audience. Moral of the story is - survival of the fittest!

In Eeb Allay Ooo! (respective vocal sounds made by langurs, humans, and monkeys), the sister of the lead character is happy that her brother (Shardul Bharadwaj) has landed a government job with help from her security guard husband. She doesn't care about how much it pays, and knows and is ignoring or cannot relate with her brother's apprehension with the nature of the contractual job which is to effectively scare off monkeys from the local streets of tony neighbourhoods of New Delhi and their official, governmental properties. As a professional monkey repeller, even having received basic but useless training from a fellow worker (played by a real monkey repeller), he struggles both at the job as well at understanding the idea of using vocal sounds to deter cunning, undisciplined, and sometimes scheming monkeys from occupying the streets and disturbing human activities. Although he comes off as a dimwit with a few tricks up his sleeve, he is unable to materialize in his job, giving us viewers a vantage look at rising unemployment in India due to lack of jobs, abundance of unskilled, unemployable individuals, and poverty.

Director Prateek Vats carves a realistic picture with his protagonist, a college dropout, who has trouble with authority as well as with the idea of an unconventional job that he didn't even know existed. But then this original drama with sporadic spurts of comedy, also notes the otherwise secure and conventional job of his brother-in-law. He is a security worker at an establishment, but when he is handed a firearm for better self defence, superstition and baser fear comes out of nowhere to clip his arms and income. Vats sheds light at the undesired situation this family quickly falls in even though there are "thousands of job vacancies ready to be filled" according to an online platform.

The mockery that the protagonist endures as well as the encounter with corrupt authority, garnished with animal rights, blind faith advocates who think monkeys are avatars of a popular monkey god, and self-righteous mobsters masquerading as animal rights activists with an assumed power of marauding human rights come together to make Eeb Allay Ooo! a satire of our times. It has some great writing and photography, which further edify its original content that is so rare in Indian cinema. Bharadwaj's performance sticks out as the highlight of the film which tends to go haywire in the middle and takes the easy way out with an open ending. But for its urgent description of the sorry state of employment in India, its associated elements, and borderline poverty make it a film worth catching. TN.

(Watched and reviewed at the We Are One Global Film Festival on YouTube. Curated by the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.)

#EebAllayOoo Somewhere I heard "an image is not a moment captured. It is a moment unleashed" It extracted the same.

#PrateekVats recorded the unfolded things and same time fired a satire on distinguish between working class labour in contemporary world.visual metaphors continue to dazzle and disturb,much after the film gets over how humans are holding humans captive.Politics, nationalism, religiosity, bigotry, the talk of gods turning pests, class divides-all are explored in a matter of fact, which makes it even more scathing a commentary on human and social condition.