If there was a list of films that have gotten away with being plain boring by being labelled ‘slow burners’, it would be quite long. Films that actually justify the tag, however, are few and far between. Gondhal, India's official entry for the Oscars this year, belongs to the latter category.
Finding a show for a Marathi film in Delhi was an achievement worthy of an Oscar in itself. I found exactly one, and was surprised to see that half the theatre had beaten the odds too.
The story revolves around the Gondhal ritual practised in parts of Maharashtra. Set over a single night, it follows Ananda (Yogesh Sohoni), who has just married Suman (Ishita Deshmukh). Sarjerao, a member of the Patil family, the quintessential oppressive village elite, has his eyes on Suman, who welcomes his advances. Her motives, however, are far more sinister. She plans to use Sarjerao to get Ananda killed, since she is in love with someone else entirely. What follows forms the crux of the film.
Beneath this tale of betrayal and revenge lies a world shaped by class divisions and the struggle for power. The Patils are not merely a powerful family but represent a social order in which authority rests with a privileged few. Their influence extends beyond status, determining who gets to exercise power and who is expected to submit to it. Desire, in such a world, is rarely divorced from dominance.
{{/usCountry}}Beneath this tale of betrayal and revenge lies a world shaped by class divisions and the struggle for power. The Patils are not merely a powerful family but represent a social order in which authority rests with a privileged few. Their influence extends beyond status, determining who gets to exercise power and who is expected to submit to it. Desire, in such a world, is rarely divorced from dominance.
{{/usCountry}}The idea behind the Gondhal ritual is simple: the deity arrives to remove obstacles from a newlywed couple's life and then departs. How director Santosh Davakhar builds an entire film around this premise is commendable. He neither relegates the ritual to the background nor lets it overwhelm the narrative. Instead, it becomes an integral part of the storytelling, lending the events of that single night a dramatic significance. There is plenty going on in Gondhal, and the film makes sure of that.
Comparisons with Kantara, starring Rishab Shetty, are inevitable, given that both films place a ritual intrinsic to their respective cultures. However, their approaches are different. While Kantara gradually builds towards becoming a supernatural drama by the climax, Gondhal remains decidedly more human in its treatment. Its tensions emerge as much from the people and the power structure around them as from the ritual itself.
What the two films do share, though, is an uneven first half that takes its time getting going. Gondhal requires patience as it establishes its characters and the dynamics between them. However, the second half changes the equation, drawing the various threads together and delivering the kind of payoff that makes the wait worthwhile. In both cases, the payoff is worth the wait, with Gondhal delivering some genuinely intriguing cinema in its latter half.
The performances in the film are terrific across the board. Ishita Deshmukh, in her debut, is remarkable on screen, capturing both Suman's opportunistic streak and her moments of helplessness with equal conviction. She brings a complexity to the character that keeps her from being reduced to a mere pawn for the men around her playing power games. Nishad Bhoir brings the right intensity to Sarjerao, a man consumed by lust, while Yogesh Sohoni delivers a strong performance as Ananda, particularly in the climax.
Now, the question: Did Gondhal deserve to go to the Oscars? It certainly makes a strong case for itself. The film more than makes up for the slow start with a second half that is gripping and unpredictable. It's rooted in its cultural setting. More importantly, it tells a local story without diluting its identity for a wider audience. And sometimes, that is precisely what makes a film worth taking to the world stage.