Its been a great year for Indian Movie, Udaan set an example of new age bollywood director, nuances in Anusha Rizvi’s “Peepli Live” is not every day hindi masala movie.What is portrayed harsh reality of farmer suicide without being melodramatic or condescending. The lot of the Indian farmer has not improved much since the days of Munshi Premchand's Godaan set in pre-Independence India [ Images ]. Actually, Natha (Omkar Das Manipuri) and Budhia (Raghubir Yadav) remind me of Hori Mahato. Hari Mahato hero of Godaan, In fact, there's a reference to him in the film; the malnourished farmer, also called Hori Mahato digging rough patches of earth to survive? Hori's plight hasn't changed even after more than six decades.
As someone who belongs to a relatively contemporary, metropolitan-bred generation, I could relate to the unfortunate divide between the urban mind-set and rural set-up. There is an urgent need to bridge the gap. We cannot be India in halves; one has to have a better understanding of where the other is coming from. Peepli [Live] provides insightful subtext to the same. But there's never any attempt to provide answers. But there is a strong slap on the bureaucracy. Marie Antoinette's famous blooper: 'If they don't have food, give them cakes!' And finally, there are the state officials who go through their entire gamut of garibi-hatao schemes, only to realise there is nothing tailor-made to prevent a farmer from committing suicide. It is the comic treatment of a cruel situation that has made it so engrossing. The entire rigmarole of breaking news, TRPs, villager bytes and grass-root opportunism is both believable and hilarious. We, as a nation, lack the ability to laugh at ourselves. Peepli [Live] not only does so but does it with a healthy irreverence. Hope it gets appreciated.
It gives the whole effort a healthy freshness. The fish bowl effect that you have while watching a village-based movie is totally absent here as I felt like a participant and not an observer of the unfolding drama. It's a compact script which has been executed with equal passion. There are no actors here only characters that all of us have seen or met at some point. I appreciate how Anusha has chosen unfamiliar faces with sound background in theatre.For all its engaging wit, every scene and close-up is a compelling study or an untold story. Bottom-line: Peepli [Live] is a well-researched, brilliantly-written and effectively documented creation that hasn't negotiated its wry vision for big screen.
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