Dashkriya

While there are several hidden gems in the Marathi cinema, I have limitation to cover only a few in this series. A film that is worth mentioning is called Dashkriya (the ritual to be performed on 10th day after the demise).

This is a film that is too dark for a certain audiences. It has dark humour as well as it deals with dark concepts of reality. The film focuses on the events and situations in the city of Nashik. Nashik is known to be the place where the final rites and religious rituals as per Hindu traditions are performed. This film adequately encapsulates these traditions. The film shows the point of view of a 10 year old boy who stays in Nashik and witnesses the dashakriya vidhi each and every day. For him it is not something solemn but it is his regular day. It shows how the mindset is behind these rites. Some people want to take the advantage of the sad families who have lost their relative while other people want to help them and minimise their trauma. The crowd is divided into these two categories. The children see the rituals as something that happens everyday in their lives. When a revolutionary dies and the priests deny to perform the rituals for him. However, the 10 year old boy takes the lead and performs the rituals himself because he had been seeing them everyday. The film gives a message towards minimization of greed and more importance towards helping the ones who are sad because of the death in their families.

The film deals with a sensitive and a dark topic yet the outcome is pleasant. The film had every opportunity to become a typical sad and melodromatic film however it takes a different path wherein it adds dark humor to it. There is a scene in the film that I would like to highlight. The boy sees rituals being performed in which he sees that white cloth has been kept. He looks at the white cloth and thinks that he is finally going to get the white shirt which he had been wanting for a very long time. Situations like these are shown in the film.

When I watched this movie for the very first time I was really impressed with how beautifully and masterfully this film presents a serious and dark topic. In our society the ultimate reality that is death is still a topic that is not often discussed. This film takes a bold approach and discusses skillfully how the topic of death can be handled. I believe after Coco this was the another film that I felt dealt with the topic surrounding death and mortality in a sensible and a playful manner.

While discussing the social issues the film never becomes preachy. It never tells the viewers what they should think or act. Rather the film relies on the viewers to think for themselves and believes that the audience is intelligent enough to come up with conclusions.

I know that it is an off topic film however for movie lovers I will definitely suggest to watch it.