Killa (Marathi) movie review

Chinmay (Deodhar) fetches up in a Konkan village, at a time when it seems to be raining non-stop. He is the new boy, and he desperately wants to be accepted by the sharp gang in his class. His mother (Subhash) is also looking to fit into a new ‘sarkari’ office, with all the attendant problems `single’ women have to deal with.

‘Killa’ is beautifully shot, the blues and greys of the monsoon drenching the screen, the high ocean waves dashing against the walls of the old fort (‘killa’) Chinmay and his friends spend so much time at. I could just drink in this film.

And the principal actors are just fine too. The straight boy who learns to be crooked, the bad-boy gang that holds out the password, the mother who learns to negotiate tricky territories, are all excellent. Bhalerao we’ve seen before, and he’s a twinkly-eyed `badmaash’ who makes us smile; as also Subhash, who shows vulnerability and strength. Deodar, who’s never faced a camera before, wins us over.

Some of the feelings that accompany a rites-of-passage film drop it into a familiar zone. In that respect, Umesh Kulkarni’s ‘Vihir’ and Vikramaditya Motwane’s ‘Udaan’ had a little more sharpness and growing-pain in their coming-of-age narratives. But for all that, ‘Killa’ will stay with me, for its spectacular setting, and for its boy.

Cast: Archit Deodhar, Amruta Subhash, Parth Bhalerao
Director: Avinash Arun