Positively heart-warming
This much feted (State, National & International) Makarand Mane’s debut directorial ef fort, Ringan-The Quest, is set in the backdrop of the agonizing agrarian crisis in Maharashtra state. Farmers have been committing suicide, plagued by debt and unending despair. One such debt-ridden farmer Arjun Magar (Shashank Shende) and his little motherless son Abhimanyu a.k.a Abdu (Sahil Joshi) are the protagonists in an endurance testing unremitting scenario. Mane’s film rests its hope on victims gathering hope rather than despair from this positively engaging portrait of survival. Magar wakes up from his suicidal spiral when a school teacher brings to his attention the letter written by his young son. Egged on by the guilt of having neglected his son’s care, Magar moves to Pandharpur in the hopes that the lord’s abode will be a little more welcoming and fruitful to them.
Marathi Film Review
After walking the streets for a few days, he manages to get hired by shop owner. He works in earnest and saves a large part of it. But while he is in the shop his isolated son feels a strong yearning for his mother. And then he gets the news that his land may be eaten up by a dairy farm. Caught between losing the only property of value he owned and his son’s yearning, Magar begins to falter and gives in to temptationin more ways than one. But his son will not let him go all the way.
The city of Pandharpur with its temples, markets and residential tenements lends strong character to this assay. For Magar, honesty above all else is what he preached to his son- so when he himself strays from that path, his breakdown was inevitable. But that’s not the end of the road for him either. Mane’s film shows how resilience can make even the most hopeless situation seem liveable.
Technically the film is in good hands. The narrative flows smoothly, the editing isn’t conspicuous, the cinematography makes the drama come alive, the background score is subtly enlivening and the performances are so life like that you can’t help but feel touched by each of them. Shashank Shende and Sahil Joshi are first rate, Kalyani Mulay is the showstopper as a kindhearted sex-worker who explains the reality of her situation to the young boy in comprehensible terms. This is certainly a film worth watching.