The film is the story of Baban (Bhausaheb Sahahji Shinde), who lives in a village in Maharashtra and belongs to the lower economic class. It not only lacks a new plot, but also suffers from a slow-paced script, among other issues. Similar is the case with Bhaurao Karhade’s Baban. This is one of the reasons why Sameer Asha Patil’s recently released Yuntum (2017) didn’t appear to be good, although it was well made and had some good performances. Needless to say, more often than not one finds content repeated too. The success of these two films, and a few other similar ones, has ensured that they become the yardstick for the audiences to judge a newly released film from this genre. The most popular of these were Sairat (2016) and Fandry (2014), both directed by Nagraj Popatrao Manjule. Most of these are tragic love stories surrounding youngsters or adolescents. ‘Baban’ definitely has a strong influence of ‘Sairat’ in it’s romantic track, & Karhade’s own Khwada’s impact on the protagonist’s struggle against the higher (rich) class, yet ‘Baban’ could have groomed into an interesting crowd pleasing entertainer had it worked harder on paper.Over the last five or six years, the audience has been subjected to a number of Marathi films based on the village life. It just doesn’t make any sense in the film’s basic conflict that felt interesting at some point, neither does it upheld the romantic angle of the film. The film ends up being forcefully over dramatic by using hard hitting realism as a device.
The most off putting aspect of ‘Baban’ for me was the resolution of the conflict/conflicts. The songs are in fact very melodious but in the scheme of things they add little to the film & instead keep disrupting the narrative of the film. It could have still belonged to both worlds with better writing & crafting of the script, but it’s in no man’s land. Had ‘Baban’ wanted to be an out & out pot boiler, it could have well believed in a modern day Marathi ‘angry young man’ or it could have completely focused itself to be a dramatic love story. They didn’t need to be as over the top as ‘south’ films but they still need to be well choreographed & executed. So thematically this track had so much depth! But sadly this track is ruined by repetition & even poor execution of ‘action’ scenes.
Now Abhay, Baban & the gang leader all belong to the same ‘community’ so the film isn’t a inter-community struggle in any way, this might be denoting that today there’s only one class difference the poor & the rich. Now Abhay is backed by a wealthy politician cum gang leader. But the sole purpose for this college backdrop appears to be the romantic track, & for the introduction of the antagonist named ‘Abhay’. The film keeps playing around in the narrative by matching every serious scene with the romantic track of the film, Baban is a college going student from the beginning to the end of the film. The actress who plays Baban’s mother is probably the finest of the lot, though with just a few dialogues she ends up shining the brightest mostly because of the way she emotes through her eyes. Comparatively the film has a decent supporting cast (of either non-actors or first timers), Bhaurao Karhade himself amuses us in the first half or so but later his monotonous performance of the carefree drunken father becomes a little boring. Throughout the film we see him in 3-4 stock expressions & his body language too is similarly out of options. But they are scattered throughout the film & in totality they don’t really make a lasting impression.Īnother major flaw is the lead actor’s limitations as an actor. However the film still has a few heartfelt moments that reflect the reality in most of the rural regions in Maharashtra today. And the craftsmanship essential to bind these three or more varieties of filmmaking is completely missing in ‘Baban’. What is it really about? Is it a love story? Or the story of an underdog fighting against the system around? Or is it a quintessential ‘masala’ film with bits of romance, action, emotional drama & humour? Well it’s all the above at different instances, neither of them are strong enough to make the film impactful. The basic problem with ‘Baban’ is that it struggles to find an exact conflict. But ‘Khwada’ had a very little & compact conflict.
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