Sometimes, being too authentic can be a major problem.
Sonchiriya, IMO, has been wrongly promoted as a Hindi movie. All the dialogues are in Bundeli, a dialect of Hindi, which is very difficult to pick without use of head phones. So, those who are willing to watch this should be mentally prepared that.
The first half is the best that I have seen this year, amongst all Hindi films. It is mindblowingly and mind numbingly relentless, with a posse of policemen set upon a gang of dreaded dacoits. The opening sequence, which lasts close to half an hour is Godfather like, with it's ambition and scope.
This is set in 1975, when emergency was declared by Mrs Gandhi and when Phoolan Devi was hunting down Thakur men who had violated her, by forming a gang of so called lower caste dacoits. All this is hinted at, sometimes peripherally , during the run-time.
Like many could-have-been-cult-classic Hindi films of recent times, this is also struck by curse of the second half, which is direction less because of lazy writing and no big pay off.
The acting is almost uniformly top notch, with the exception of Sushant Singh, who looks ill at ease. Ranveer Shorey is awe inspiring.
The action scenes are extremely raw and reminded me of the first Gangs of Wasseypur.
There are strong overtones of class and caste conflicts, which is a reality of life, even today, in Chambal, the area that includes Gwalior, Morena and Bhind.
This could have been another win for the director after Udta Punjab. However, this is more in the lines of Ishqiya, his directorial debut, which promised a lot but was let down by the second half and the climax.
Sonchiriya, IMO, has been wrongly promoted as a Hindi movie. All the dialogues are in Bundeli, a dialect of Hindi, which is very difficult to pick without use of head phones. So, those who are willing to watch this should be mentally prepared that.
The first half is the best that I have seen this year, amongst all Hindi films. It is mindblowingly and mind numbingly relentless, with a posse of policemen set upon a gang of dreaded dacoits. The opening sequence, which lasts close to half an hour is Godfather like, with it's ambition and scope.
This is set in 1975, when emergency was declared by Mrs Gandhi and when Phoolan Devi was hunting down Thakur men who had violated her, by forming a gang of so called lower caste dacoits. All this is hinted at, sometimes peripherally , during the run-time.
Like many could-have-been-cult-classic Hindi films of recent times, this is also struck by curse of the second half, which is direction less because of lazy writing and no big pay off.
The acting is almost uniformly top notch, with the exception of Sushant Singh, who looks ill at ease. Ranveer Shorey is awe inspiring.
The action scenes are extremely raw and reminded me of the first Gangs of Wasseypur.
There are strong overtones of class and caste conflicts, which is a reality of life, even today, in Chambal, the area that includes Gwalior, Morena and Bhind.
This could have been another win for the director after Udta Punjab. However, this is more in the lines of Ishqiya, his directorial debut, which promised a lot but was let down by the second half and the climax.