Film: Bogda
Cast: Suhas Joshi, Mrunmayee Deshpande, Jayant Gadekar, Rohit Kokate, Ajinkya Bhosale
Director: Nisheeta Keni
Rating: * *
Director Nisheeta Keni’s debut feature as Director, writer, producer is about a dysfunctional mother-daughter duo set out on a road trip from a village in Maharashtra to a remote center in the south, Thambu, where euthanasia is the preferred cure for the terminally ill.
Mai(Suhas Joshi) head-strong and opinionated despite her terminal illness enlists her daughter Teju a.k.a Tejaswini as a companion on the trip to no return. To acquiesce, Teju has to forgo her dream of leaving her boring pickle factory job for the ambition of enrolling in a dance school in Kolhapur and being close to her boyfriend/fiancé Sachin(Ajinkya Bhosale) who is already set on the move.
There is conflict in the drama but it’s presented in a laid back, entirely deadening momentum that you would be hard-pressed to stay awake. Some frames are definitely beautiful here but the overall slackening in tempo and severe lack of tension is inhibiting to the enjoyment of it. The shadowy lighting, the dark camerawork, indulgent, lazy editing, the almost experimental, amateurish narrative structure adds to the overall misery here. Suhas Joshi, Mrunmayee Deshpande, Ajinkya Patil, Rohit Kokate as the driver and Jayant Gadekar as the pickle factory owner – referred to as bulldog by his son Sachin, do well to stay true to the characters they essay. Unfortunately, their efforts amount to zilch because the narrative prolongs the agony through indecisive craft and indulgent spiel. As a feature, there’s little content or edge to validate the ensuing waywardness in length. This sort of lean subject could have lent itself much more appreciably to a succinct, meaningful short film.