In recent times, the Marathi film industry has begun creating many interesting films that tackle social issues and represent a story in a very stylish manner. One of these films is Pune 52, Director Nikhil Mahajan's debut feature. I got a chance to watch Pune 52 at the Pune International Film Festival in Pune. While walking inside the theater, I was excited with a hope of enjoying another good and different Marathi film. I had already heard a lot about it's "dark themes" encompassing a supposedly good detective story. On entering the theater, I was satisfied to see a huge crowd occupying all the seats. With no seats remaining, I, along with many others, were forced to sit on the aisles. Few minutes before the film began, the director himself appeared with a broad smile and a feeling of satisfaction visible very clearly on his face while observing the huge crowd that had come to see his film. He gave a short speech and some words caught my attention: "Watch the film with an open mind. The film's theme is quite dark and noir-ish. This is something you haven't seen in any other Marathi film yet". He thanked the audience and finally the screening commenced.
The Dissatisfaction
Pune 52 is the story of a private detective, Amar Apte, who's economical condition is at it's all time low. He still continues with his profession as he loves solving mysteries. His wife, Prachi, is sick and completely tired with her husband. She had married him because he was "adventurous" but their love due to their economical conditions was slowing dying out. While Prachi insults her husband everyday for not properly bringing any bread in the house, we see a bored Amar who wants to bring back excitement in his life. His work has been both boring and unproductive until one day a young woman named Neha hires him to keep a watch on her own husband whom she suspects of having an affair. Amar, with the hope of restoring some excitement in his life, takes the case and this point on wards, everything begins to change for him...
The Femme Fatale
Dark, of course, but Pune 52 didn't impress me. This film has the common elements of usual "noir" films which includes dark cinematography (At times, the film actually is shown in Black and White), a dark story and the involvement of a femme fatale (In this case, it's Neha). This dark setting was impressively filmed and the film had my complete attention for it's first half. After the interval, Pune 52 tends to become a bit pointless and pretentious. That also includes the ending which was completely abrupt, incoherent and left me dumbfounded. So, you wanna bring a change in Marathi cinema? I embraced the beautiful technical aspects of this film with open arms but couldn't find any meaning behind what the film wanted to say. No, the story is completely clear and everyone is aware of what was going on. But the story lacks any depth and film just covers that fact up by becoming pretentious. Although the script was dissatisfying, the acting is explosive and well done. Girish Kulkarni, Sonali Kulkarni and Sai Tamhankar play very convincing roles of Amar, Prachi and Neha respectively.
I will conclude saying that Pune 52 was another interesting Marathi film with great performances but a poor script. If you are still interested, give it a shot. But don't expect any thing new, as I had.
The quality of Marathi Movies is really going good and in future we hope that it will improve more.
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