WATCH THE TRAILER HERE
First, the Recap:
The world stinks. How many times have we uttered these exact words to express a random displeasure of how we view our surroundings or the greater part of this Earth we live in? Treated as casually as it is, we don’t stop to consider that there might actually be other people who have to face this reality in a much more literal, tangibly acrid way while trying to build any semblance of hope for life turning sweeter. Such is the plight of 14-year old Gopi (Samarth Sonawane) as he toils through assisting his drunken, deadbeat father Jaggu (Vinod Kulkarni) in jobs that are less than savory and leave him smelling of existence’s waste, even as a glimmer of light to escape it all shines on the distant horizon thanks to a mythological story that inspires him to seek out a fantastical aroma–and a road to freedom.
Next, my Mind:
Social justice, daring to dream, working to earn reward, and rising above one’s own self doubts against the odds all take center stage as the underlying foundations for this 100-minute dramatic feature film project that is brought to life through writer/director Vinod Kamble, writer Shivaji Karde, producers Dr. Payal Ajay Dhoke, Dr. Anjali Mahesh Akhade, Dr. Asmita Vidyadhar Gaikwad, Dr. Swati Sharad Gupta, Prabhavati Basavaraj Akashi, Amita Yogesh Kamat, Sushma Vinay Pazare, Vaishali Laxmikant Dhoke, and Vijay Golpalrao Dhoke plus executive producer Abhay Chavan, screened as part of the 2020 I View World Film Festival sponsored by the embassies of India, Canada, Sweden, Netherlands, Italy, Argentina, British Council, and The EU, curated by Engendered Delhi, and in partnership with NYCSAFF.
There’s a distinct degree of weightiness that one feels when watching the story of one young boy’s haggard, impoverished life, the seemingly meaningless jobs he’s made to endure thanks to a truly absent (even when he IS present) father, a longsuffering mother, and the sheer scope of a future he strives to see through a symbolic adventure to find a specific scent that motivates his longings and goals, as the film does a solid job at pulling no punches in its depiction of just how desolate Gopi’s reality is. The heartbreaking moments of seeing someone so innocent burdened by the starkly real smells his clothes absorb thanks to the labors he performs and how it impacts his daily routine and his worth in the eyes of peers grip you with apropos inner resonance and push the film’s messages home emphatically.
Yet, in the midst of all this, it still felt like there was an ultimate lack of that wholly consistent and more deeply affecting emotional punch overall that this critic was waiting for, as the film sometimes feels more like a series of pieced together vignettes with a baseline thematic core running through it than one cohesively executed narrative. Again, it DOES successfully make the points its striving to do, but by the finale and the moment that should just place a definitive concluding exclamation point on Gopi’s story, it more delivers conjecture and an illustration of what he’s learned in his aromatic journey, but not quite to the level of leaving the viewer completely fulfilled. I think of other recent film’s involving a child-driven story, such as the resoundingly excellent “Chippa“, and perhaps somehow that’s what I was wishing for but didn’t quite receive.
However, what the film might lack in its grander potency, it decidedly makes up for in the thematic explorations involved with Gopi’s life, as subjects ranging from self worth, caste oppression and the unjust bullying and treatment it can bring, the mental toll said abuse can initiate on a young mind, the politics of corruption, bribery, and being crushed by debt, the importance of education, earning your dreams and still believing in them even when knocked down, abiding friendship, and perseverance all find their way into the portrait being painted, and these are very much necessary, highly relevent facets of our human condition to maintain awareness of in the grander scope of just how needed it is to have more evident opportunities for those less fortunate to be given the chance to rise like anyone else. It’s class separation that needs to stop.
Sonawane is still a marvel here for me in that I still keep getting impressed by the talent being found when it comes to child actors. Here, Sonawane gets to modestly and unobtrusively exude a subdued intentionality in his role as Gopi, a young teenage boy who’s found himself not only in what is considered a lower caste, but also having to work jobs that make him the target for his fellow students when he’s even able to attend school in the first place. Beleaguered by his own sense of shame and sometimes literal stink that he makes all efforts to hide with varying perfumes, he gets buoyed by a religious story that sends him and his only real friend on a path to find a fantastical scent that Gopi sees as a ticket to emancipation towards a better tomorrow. Even as his schooling brings him an unexpected success, it still becomes about having to learn that life tries its best to keep him down, but that hope can still remain. Sonawane does a fine job embodying Gopi’s character, as is charmingly believable throughout.
Primary supporting roles arrive from Shravan Upalkar as Gopi’s truest, most supportive friend Adim, Vaishali Kendale as Gopi’s highly frustrated mother Aasha, Kulkarni as Gopi’s alcoholic father Jaggu, and Kunal Pawar as Vikas, Gopi’s only supposed hope to possess the vaunted scent he seeks. Additional turns come from Ajay Chavan, Raju Pardeshi, Akash Bansode, Samadhan Sarvgod, Vijay Shikare, and several others. So, in total, while the film didn’t quite furnish or achieve the absolute magnitude of emotional heights it might have been able to, it is still a well-done and undeniably evocative piece of cinema that showcases the ugly side of life without apologies so that we may be reminded of exactly what needs to change or be adjusted in order that we would see a world much more unified in dreams being reached by EVERYONE as ONE human race.
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
