As first movies go, Pokhar Ke Dunu Paar (2022) is uncommon. Moderately than making a nostalgia piece a few couple returning to their roots, director Parth Saurabh has crafted a downbeat story in regards to the perils of going dwelling.
The journey is necessitated by the pandemic. Sumit (Abhinav Kha) and Priyanka (Tanaya Khan Jha) relocate from Delhi to their dwelling city Darbhanga looking for financial refuge. They’d eloped from Darbhanga just a few years in the past, a proven fact that particularly pricks Priyanka, who has did not re-establish contact together with her household.
In the meantime, Sumit slips – relatively, regresses – into the consolation of pals who by no means left. The couple’s more and more unstable monetary state of affairs isn’t helped by Sumit’s escalating emotional distance from his partner.
Pokhar Ke Dunu Paar (On Both Facet of the Pond) has been written by Parth Saurabh and Abhinav Jha. The Hindi-language movie has been premiered on MUBI. One of many film’s producers is Achal Mishra, whose Dhuin, which can be on MUBI, serves as a thematic cousin to Saurabh’s function debut.
Each movies reveal the Darbhanga wasteland that’s ejecting its younger. There’s nothing romantic in regards to the crumbling hostel with fading Communist get together symbols and stray cats the place Sumit and Priyanka take shelter, identical to there’s nothing charming about Sumit’s drunken conversations together with his buddies. Every little thing appears to be crumbling, identical to the wedding between two confused, frightened and fragile children.
The evocative, emotionally uncooked exploration of Darbhanga blues advantages from Saurabh’s refusal to make issues simple for his protagonists. Regardless of some scenes that stretch on for a lot too lengthy, Pokhar Ke Dunu Paar is a memorable chronicle of the truth of small-town India.
The roles are few and much between. Social restrictions, particularly on ladies, result in stifling. The stasis that hangs over the Darbhanga air often breaks for spells of rain. There isn’t a rainbow in sight.
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