Uttarayan - Northward Journey. Review on Uttarayan Movie

With so many love, marriage, breakups, tie-up gossips going around. am sure many gossip readers like me are having best of their times again.

First the triangle story of Shahid/Kareena/Saif. Then the Srija/whatever his name. Then the Rizwanur case aur na jaane kya kya?? Even MS is clogged with reviews and discussions on marriage and love these days. As one of the esteemed members put it, while some are busy discussing relationships with one or many, others are struggling to find even one.  Its time we realise that society is changing around us and adjust and accept accordinlgy. Alas.!

Uttarayan is a Marathi movie based on a novel."Durgi", directed by Bipin Nadkarni about one such loner in his almost second childhood (as Shakespeare once quoted) looking for companionship to spend the rest of his Life. The novel is actually the story of Kusumavati(fondly called Durgi played by Neena Kulkarni), the woman and her Life. But the movie turns out to be the old man, Raghuveer Rajyadhyaksha played by Shivaji Satam.

Raghu is a widower who had moved to Mumbai from Nagpur after retirement to spend the rest of this time with his son who is soon getting married to get rid of his loneliness. His wife had already passed aways about 14 years ago. During the course of his stay, he meets his child hood friend babu borkar who is still not married through him he gets to know the whereabouts of his crush during his college days. That is Durgi who also had a bad abused marriage, staying with her mother and working as a librarian in the same area.

After some initial incidents of made-up(accidental) encounters, both Raghu and Durgi start to have feelings for each other. With some very much required encouragement from Babu, Raghu proposes to Durgi and asks her to marry him. But Durgi refuses. Although he wanted to wait till his son gets married and leaves to US on a long term project. What makes her to reject a person who she knows is the best companion one another can have for the rest of their lives after what they have gone through? And what happens afterwards? Watch your yourself.

If you have come so far, imagine a situation where a person is all by himself and realises that nobody around him really needs him. But he needs to be with somebody he loves. On top of that, if that person is the head of a respectable well to do lower middle class family(remember..  these families really have to abide by the rules of the society). And then the age. When somebody talks about love, the first thought that occurs is extreme. That is human. But if given some time,  one will realise the gravity or the depth of the meaning. But who has time today..

There have been some movies lately on old age love stories or old-young love stories(Amitabh+Jiah movie or the Victor Banerjee+Perizaad one). Some too much  to digest while others not as interesting. IN fact I loved the somewhat mature flow in Baghban but it got screwed with Holi and Phone songs.

Well... too much to say. just not able to put properly in words.

Overall a very nice movie. Just one point to be mentioned was this was the most competitive contender for sending to OScars alongside Paheli. The Music & Cinematogrpahy are excellent. if only more and more Marathi movies(for that matter regional) are made, Bollywood will defenitely have tough time.

Mumbai is portrayed as though I might like to relocate to Mumbai. :-). The only song somehow reminded me of the title track of Anand movie(telugu). Direction is pretty good. The theme is very delicate but handled even more gracefully with no maar daalunga, kaat daalunga type. The mature meeting scenes of Durgi and Raghu will definitely keep you entertained and smiling. Its a great achivement on the directors part when even mating scenes on the 70 mm screen will make you want to take a break.

The "Ek Shunya Shunya" guy (Shivaji Satam) plays Raghu with such an ease. You will hardly believe that he was playing a character of 60+ year old. He has a genuine smile all along.

Neena Kulkarni is charming even as old Durgi and such a role would have been a cakewalk for her. BTW, she is also the producer of this movie. Viju Khote brings in some comedy scenes to lighten up although the movie never gets that intense.