Topic started by Ramki (@ ws35.honovi.com) on Thu Feb 1 10:09:40 .
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Astitva: a review
Definitely one of the decent hindi films i have watched in last few years. Thought
provoking story and wonderful performance by Tabu makes this movie highly watchable.
The entire story revoloves around 3 main characters. There are no rain wetting scenes nor
switzerland picturised songs. No preaching on love (what a relief) nor absurd comedy.
Story:
Shrikant Pandit(sachin khedekar)is a rich businessman with a devoted wife adhiti(Tabu)
and a 25 yr old son Aniket(Sunil Bharve). Aniket is engaged to Revathy(Namrata shrodhkar).
Film starts with shrikants friend Ravi visiting them for vacation with his wife
Meghna(smita jeyekar).We are told Meghna is a divorcee with 2 teenage daughters.Ravi is
her second husband.
We are introduced to Revathy, an independent 21st century woman ,a software engr who
goes to work not bcoz she needs money but to be financially independent.
Adhiti is a traditional indian women who devotes her whole life to her family and house.
The 2 friends(shrikant and ravi) have few drinks when a registered post arrives for Adhiti.
To Meghnas disbelief, Shrikant opens the letter which is addressed to his wife Adhiti.
The letter says that Adhiti has inherited a lot of property from someone called Malhar.
Adhiti says Malhar was her music guru 25 year sbefore.
This matter is given least importance as everyone is drunk
But when shrikant becomes sober he wonders why someone should leave his wife with that
much property.
shrikant who has the habit of keeping a journal on day to day happenings starts looking into
his journal for incident that had happened 25 yrs before.
And the whole mystery unfolds in a series of flashbacks.
Shrikant and Adhiti are newly wed middleclass couples. Shrikant who works for a
company is too busy travelling to different countries for his company and also trying to
establish his own business. He even decides to have a child only after having their own
bungalow.
Adhiti starts feeling lonely, unwanted and undesired. Most of the time shrikant is busy
travelling and when he is back he is too tired to be physically intimate with her.
When adhiti complains to him he asks her to be patient and encourages to her to take on
music practice to keep her busy and occupied.
Enters Malhar(Mohnish Behl)as the music teacher.
Shrikant achieves a lot of professional growth
and on the day when he buys his bungalow he learns that adhiti is pregnant. He becomes
extremely happy.
But now shrikant who is reading his journal learns that his son was born in 8 months and
the time adhiti conceived he was not even in India.
Shrikant rushes back to home and confronts Adhiti.
This is the best scene in the whole movie.Both Tabu and Sachin has done very well.
Adhiti confesses that Aniket is Malhars son.
Highly enraged shrikant call his friend Ravi and his wife Meghna and forces Adhiti to
reveal her affair with Malhar in front of his friends and aniket.
This is another scene which shows the acting prowess of Tabu.
Adhiti tells how her loneliness , her yearning for a company , absence of shrikant when she
needed him and presence of a young handsome Malhar makes her weak, her body taking
control over he mind and eventually leads to sleeping with Malhar.
But this is only a one time affair. She repents for doing that and even stops meeting
Malhar(who really loves her). when she learns that she is carrying his baby she wants to
confess everything to Shrikant but shrikant never gives her a chance.
Adhiti asks shrikant to apologise her but shrikant says that he is not that broad minded to
accept his wifes infidelity and someones son as his own.
Aniket calls adhiti a prostitute and storms out.
(We are also told that shrikant had a series of affairs but is ok bcoz he is a man. )
Things get a serious turn when Revathy breaks her engagement with Aniket. Aniket thinks
it is bcoz of his mothers infidelity (though revathy has a diff reason).
Shrikant asks Aditi to leave the house.When he offers to give her alimony Adhiti gently but
firmly refuses it.
What happens to adhiti and where she goes forms the remaining part of the story.
Tabu has given her best. She proves she is one of the talented actress of Bollywood. The
last scene where she talks about domestic rape and equality
is one of the highlights of the movie.
She has lot of chances to win the national award.
But her voice is awful. It is so manly that you cant differentiate between her voice and
sachins.
Also she is not good in crying. scenes
Other actors have done equally well. Music by sukwinder is really good. There are 3
classical numbers and they are done very well. My pick is chal chal. Rahul Ranade has
done the background music.
Kavitha krishnamurthys 'mein thi mei hoon mein rahoongi' had meaningful lyrics
Very few Indian movies deals with loneliness of house wives. This movie implies that
every human being has the same desires and expectations irrespective of their sex. The
film doesnt support infidelity and at the same its not apologetic either.
Mahesh Manjrekar who is more famous for his violent films like vastav has taken a
differnt topic and has approached it in a decent way.
This is a must see hind film for , i will say, every male. It raises a lot of questions and
issues.
Though the subject matter is a little bit controversial(for indian standards)it doesn't make you feel uncomfortable.
Highly recommonded
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