MY INTERPRETATION - VIHIR

Vihir :
The well

A film written by Girish Kulkarni and Directed by Umesh Kulkarni
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Vihir is a story of a boy’s discovery of realities of life, a story that succeeds in addressing the inner struggles of teenage boy, who is growing up to confront the situations of death, sorrow, pain and compromise.His dreams and desires constantly clash with the realities. There seems to be a thin line between the psychological and emotional quotient of life versus its practicalities that makes it difficult to distinguish them from another. There comes a stage in everyone’s life when one starts realizing this ‘differentiating line’, which seems to grow wider and stronger. Such is the story of two boys … Sameer and Nachiket.

The two characters are beautifully portrayed to depict distinct perspectives towards life. One of them is in pursuit of exploring things but feels tied up by these bonds of practicalities and the other one is striving to understand this quest of exploration

The visual portrayal of the conflict faced by Sameer, of the rejection of certain situations that occur in the course of time, presents an illusion of his actual life, as if trapped in the vicious circle and monotony of life that continues without any changes despite the loses, until one day, he runs away, to seek answers to his questions. Nachiket in a way has passed his torch to Sameer and his journey completes the circle, implying that he found out the right thread to hold on to, leading to an “equitable” life further.

Each of the characters surrounding Sameer is carefully etched, each one dealing with an inner conflict. He/she has succumbed to the struggle and learned to accept the faith. The grandmother and the grandfather with nonconformist son and the liability of their four daughters, the youngest aunt urged to get married against her wishes and the older aunt with a drinking and abusive husband, the idiosyncratic uncle with his differences with normative social behavior and Sameer’s mother’s guilt of not having helped her sister’s husband – all of them live with a submission to their situations.

The story captures the essence of the semi-urban and rural life in India, a family sprinkled in the city, village and town, the impacts of urbanization, girls married off in the cities, kids migrating for education, middle class values and customs, the economical predicaments faced by them that overshadow the very family life, the little things that always matter more and a simple envelope for a yet complex life. In a nutshell it is a heartwarming depiction of traditions and fine values of a classic Maharashtrian middle-class lifestyle.

This is a film canvas, where one could surrender and move through the spaces during the private discussions in the night and then experience the run in larger open fields. There is a contrast use of day and night, use of different spaces of a larger space for different emotional nurturing – at times playful corridors, tense smaller rooms, suspenseful dark corridors opening into moon lit open areas, a cozy and personal attic, distinct swimming spaces…deeper, shadowy or larger . A film that outgrows the story, becoming more of a ride of experiences, which one might have left, locked up.