‘Sairat’ | Movie Review – This Raw Marathi Musical Will Tug At Your Heart

Knowing that Nagraj Popatrao Manjule, the director of the National award-winning Marathi movie Fandry, is returning with a new movie, this time a mainstream musical featuring the legendary pairing of ‘Ajay-Atul’, was enough cause of excitement. Loosely translated, the word ‘Sairat’ means going speedily hither-tither and it also could mean ardour i.e. great enthusiasm or passion. That meaning would resonate with love birds who experience their life going haywire with them reaching from point A to point B of their life in a surreal, super fast manner, when even they can not tell what happened, why it happened or when it all happened.

Sairat is the story of a rich girl Archie (Rinku  Rajguru) and poor guy Parshya (Akash Toshar), and how these two people from very different communities and economic background fall in love, and when their families discover their relationship it result in an obvious clash. This is a début project for both lead actors, who take the entire movie on their shoulders and carry it with such great aplomb, that they two become the heroes in every sense of the term. The role of Archie is so well portrayed by Rinku, and that the innocence coupled with the sharp dialogue delivery makes her every scene stand out.

This melodramatic romantic film may sound a bit cliché, but the director makes the whole story seem very realistic. There are two different kinds of narrative packaged into one film, and their varying styles only add to the uniqueness of the story. From the choice of locations for shooting (Solapur district) or the excellent cinematography, the dress up of all the characters and the local dialect used for the fantastically written dialogues – all such elements make the movie super watchable, even when the plot turns loose at some ends. Ajay-Atul’s magnificent music is goosebump-inducing good. Even the side characters, especially Salim, have done a brilliant job with their parts.

Not only has Mr. Manjule become successful in creating a tale of love and simple pleasures that warm your heart, but he has also managed to make you frown at the state of affairs that still persist in the society, be it related to the caste-based rivalry or how we let old cultural beliefs interfere with common sense and go against peace-making. Apart from the societal issues of class and caste, the film also highlights the major issue of gender discrimination practised even today.

With Fandry the director stunned the audience with a superb climax sequence, and he follows a similar approach in Sairat as well. The movie is very fast-paced in the first half, and it seems like the director deliberately executed the second-half to be a bit slow so that the effect of this strong-punch climax is maximum.

This 170-minute movie (or as many people tagged it – the Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak of Marathi) has released across Maharashtra and the rest of India with English subtitles, so even non-native people may enjoy this regional cinematic achievement.

Overall Rating: 4/5