Cinema is meant for entertainment but it too has a social duty to educate people on what’s happening around them. To make a meaningful yet entertaining movie, It’s a difficult path to follow. Very few directors have been successful in that. #NagrajManjule who rose to national fame with his hard hitting yet entertaining film ‘#Sairat’ has once again treaded the same path with his new film ‘Jhund’. Though it has millennial superstar #AmitabhBachchan in it, Manjule has not been bogged down with superstar’s image and has delivered an entertaining fare with Jhund. Like his earlier films Nagraj has tapped raw talent and cast them alongside Amitabh Bachchan and the outcome is superlative. Jhund subtly talks about societal disparity, oppression of the lower strata of society, caste divide, women’s rights as well as their education. Though these points are well taken, it slackens the pace of the film. But Nagraj Manjule has delivered an entertainer with Jhund.
Jhund is based on a college sports teacher from Nagpur, Mr Vijay Borse. Mr Borse had spotted talent of football in the neighbouring slums and despite opposition from many went ahead to coach them and give them a life of dignity. Zopadpatti or slum dwellers are considered as a curse to the society by the relatively well to do people. But talent isn’t born only in monied people’s house. If nurtured with kid gloves the children from the zopadpatti too can lead a decent life. Lack of education and opportunities make them face hardships of life and that leads most of them to wrong path. Vijay Borse hones the talent in these slum kids and encourages them to play football. He even forms a Slum Soccer team and conducts All India Zopadpatti Football Tournament where children from slums all over India take part. It proves another point that crores of people are staying in slums in our country and given a chance they can showcase their talent.
In his earlier film ‘Sairat’ director Nagraj Manjule had highlighted prevalent honour killing practice in the country. Also he subtly had spoken about the class and caste divide still prevalent in contemporary society. In Jhund Nagraj Manjule, who is credited for screenplay, dialogues and direction, narrates the story comparing two diversifying societies. The class division is visible visually in plenty of shots, thanks to the excellent cinematography by Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti (who had directed a marathi film Naal which fetched Shrinivas Pokle a National Award as the Best Child Artiste). Nagraj has infused a lot of characters and establishes them in detail but in the process the film’s length suffers (178 M). Proper editing would have increased the impact of the film. The film has Nagpuri dialect which sounds interesting and is laced with humour adds to the entertainment quotient of the film. Some of the ‘passing-dialogues’ are still more humorous. Ajay Atul’s music is good but not every time they can recreate Sairat.
Amitabh Bachchan is the backbone of Jhund and despite that he has not overshadowed any of the characters. He mesmerises with his ease in front of the camera and is a delight to watch him perform. He has control over every frame he appears in and nudges every actor in it to perform well. All the newbie actors have done well including Ankush Gedam (Don). Priyanshu Kshatriya in Babu’s character is excellent. ‘Sairat’ stars Rinku Rajguru and Akash Thosar do well in a limited screen space. Manjule has used almost all his artistes, including Chhaya Kadam and Kishore Kadam, from his earlier films like Sairat, Fandry, in small roles.
Amitabh Bachchan is once again playing ‘Vijay’ in ‘Jhund’ which is his lucky ‘film’ name which may help the film do well commercially apart from Nagraj Manjule’s superlative narration.
Rating : ****
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