Movie Review: Harischandrachi Factory

Almost a century ago, one man showed dreams on the silver screen to the Indian people. It wasn't easy at all for Dhundiraj G Phalke aka Dadasaheb Phalke. An uphill journey, ordeals and challenges to be met. Yet he surmounted them all-with perseverance and passion- and against all odds, realized his silver dreams and progressed further, thus laying the important foundation for today's Indian film industry.

Trying to capture just a small slice (around 2 years or so) of the life and struggles of this great patriarch of the industry, is debutant director Paresh Mokashi's Marathi film, Harishchandrachi Factory. Although it's a delightful film, with Mokashi portraying Phalke in a different light, it tends to ridiculously border on the frivolous with Mokashi's Phalke virtually clowning around, most often than not. One would like to think that a man of that depth and restless curiosity would be portrayed with a little more reverence while being shown on the very medium he brought to this country..

Mokashi's intentions may not have been to do so, but the Chaplinesque portrayal and light-hearted narrative tends to undermine the gravity of the struggle that Phalke had to go through to realize this impossible( in that era) dream.

Nandu Madhav has obviously interpreted Phalke's persona ( as a rather bumbling, restless character??) as scripted by Mokashi and to that extent he is good; Vibhawari Deshpande as Saraswati, Phalke's exuberant, enthusiastic wife is like a breath of fresh air and so are the child artists(all of them)-Phalke and Saraswati-the chemistry is amazing; we get to see an occasional poignant moment between them, but by and large the film is too frothy and light, which is what I had a problem with. Besides this, of course are the sets. They remain just that-SETS--often falling short in lending authenticity to the period.

To top it all, (and I wasn't alone) the end had us stumped. There was an odd moment when the audience waited for something more to happen only to see the end credits rolling! It was then that they began shuffling in their seats.

However to give the devil his due, the earlier half of the film is enjoyable...with Anand Modak's music lending a touch of nostalgia to the whole experience.