Language – Marathi
SPOILER ALERT – The what is explained but have left out the how and that’s the most important element of this movie!
Trigger warning – CSA, rape, violence
Plot – A little girl, Manda, living in a slum is brutally raped and her parents, being daily wage earners, find it hard to convince the police to act on the complaint. Her grandmother tends to her, physically and emotionally and decides to set out on the manhunt on her own and avenge her granddaughter. Traversing through various social lines and navigating through the dark underbelly of the criminal world, Ajji delivers justice and in her own unique way!
There are revenge dramas and then there is Ajji! This dark movie that depicts the reality of poverty in all its rawness and crudity brings to you everything that can churn your insides. The theme of revenge amidst caste and social inequality, crass legal systems, apathetic police, social injustices, the state of women’s safety, the aggravated vulnerability of poor girls, the system that protects the criminals and the helplessness of the poor to get any form of visibility or justice. This movie is not for the faint hearted.
The cinematographer captures the true essence of life in a slum as well as brings out the main theme of the movie in all its entirety. You experience the anguish, the desperation, the violence and the pain as the camera pans to the actors and their surroundings.
The actors are completely believable. Especially Ajji (played by Sushama Deshpande), as the arthritic old lady who seeks revenge for the violence her grand daughter has endured. Her compassion, her love and her anger are so beautifully captured by the actor! The cunning she employs to track down the rapists and the final 15 minutes of the movie are hers entirely!
This movie was nominated to 9 national and international awards and has won 3 of them!
CSA as a subject needs a lot of sensitivity and subjectivity to ensure that it does justice to the theme as well as evoke the audience to think deeply about the subject. The audience must be invested in the theme to the point that they are uncomfortable with what is happening on the screen. This movie ticks those boxes perfectly.
Do watch it for its performances. This movie, like I mentioned earlier, is very dark and gets under your skin. It will take you sometime to get over it.
My rating 9/10 (The only con I saw was that it is slow in some parts and the pace is swifter in others and while revenge was a great idea, it is almost unreal how the grandmother manages to carry it out)
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