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​Baba Marathi Movie Poster

Genres:  Drama Censor: UA Duration: 138 min. Studio / Presenter: Sanjay S Dutt Productions, Blue Mustang Creations Producers: Maanayata Dutt, Ashok Subhedar Director:  Raj R Gupta Writer:  Manish Singh Editor:  Aasif Ayaz Pathan Cast:  Deepak Dobriyal, Nandita Patkar, Spruha Joshi, Aaryan Menghji Movie Review by: Ulhas Shirke

In the past, through films like Gulzar’s ‘Koshish’ and Sanjay Leela Bhansali‘s ‘Khamoshi’ we have seen the struggle of speech and hearing impaired parents, while communicating with their child . Similarly in Marathi film like Samruddhi Porey‘s ‘Mala Aai Vhaychay’ we saw the problems faced by a surrogate mother, when after taking care of the child , the absconding Mother suddenly comes to take the possession of the child. The film had also shown the story in legal and emotional perspective of who should the child be with.

Now, Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt presented and Raj R Gupta directed latest Marathi film ‘Baba‘, we find a speech and hearing impaired poor village couple Madhav( Deepak Dobriyal) & Anandi ( Nandita Patkar) taking unconditional charge of a three day old illegitimate child born to an unmarried woman Pallavi( Spruha Joshi) , whose father refuses to accept the child.

The poor couple living in a remote village make all the efforts to offer love and affection to the child named Shankar ( Aryan Menghji) for eight long 8 years. Though the child can hear, he cannot speak, obviously because of the environment around him. When after eight years, the real mother returns with her husband Raajan ( Abhijit Khandkekar) after four years of their marriage, to claim the child, Madhav and Anandi are dragged into court by their lawyer Mr. Sapre ( Shailesh Datar) to prove their claim right. So, the Public Prosecutor Mr. Madke ( Jayant Gadekar) is provided to the poor couple. What transpires in the court of Judge ( Jaywant Wadkar) handling this legal battle and how the poor father Madhav makes desperate efforts to make his little son speak during the hearing period of the case, is an interesting emotion and humour filled story presented through the film’s screenplay.

What impresses the most, is the battle in the court, with Madhav and Anandi trying to prove their point through their family friend Tryambak(Chittaranjan Giri) who stammers while speaking. The director has very skilfully shown the lifestyle of Madhav and Anandi, while meeting the small demands of little Shankar. Moreover, the struggle of Madhav is clearly noticed through his efforts so as to not lose the custody of his beloved Shankar.

The film’s screenplay and presentation style seems to have been inspired by award winning Iranian Film maker Majid Majidi and therefore there is a lot of scope for this film to receive invitations from various international film festivals. The performances of the lead artistes are the best. They find very good support from the supporting artistes. The film has also received good technical support, with superb cinematography by Arjun Sorte, good art direction by Siddharth Tatooskar, Bhakti Tatooskar suitable sound design of Shijin Hutton- Abhishek Nair and perfect music and background music by the team of Rohan, Rohan & Susmit Limaye to create the perfect village backdrop during the period of 1990.

All in all, ‘Baba’ is an artistic film for all those film lovers who love to watch something sensible that touches their heart. This emotion filled film with some added humour, is also a tribute to all fathers in this world.