Sairat
Sairat is a 2016 Indian Marathi-language social romantic tragedy film directed and co-produced by Nagraj Manjule under his banner Aatpat Production, along with Nittin Keni and Nikhil Sane under Essel Vision Productions and Zee Studios. Starring Rinku Rajguru and Akash Thosar in their debuts, it tells the story of two young college students from different castes who fall in love, sparking conflict between their families.
Nagraj Manjule conceived the story in 2009, basing it on his experiences of caste discrimination, but scrapped it when he decided that it was boring. After making Fandry, he revisited the story and completed its script the following year. The screenplay was written by Manjule, and his brother Bharat penned the dialogues. The film was shot in Manjule's village, Jeur in Karmala Taluka of Solapur district in Maharashtra. Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti was the director of photography, and Kutub Inamdar edited the film.
Sairat premiered at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival, where it received a standing ovation. It was released on 29 April 2016 in Maharashtra and several other locations in India, receiving positive reviews from critics. The film grossed over ₹110 crore at the box office emerged as sleeper hit, and became the highest-grossing Marathi film of all time. Rajguru received the National Film Award – Special Mention at the 63rd National Film Awards. Sairat received 11 awards at the 2017 Filmfare Marathi Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Music Album. Rajguru and Thosar won in the Best Debut female and male categories. The film was remade in several languages: Manasu Mallige in Kannada, Channa Mereya in Punjabi, Laila O Laila in Odia, Noor Jahaan in Bengali and Dhadak in Hindi.
Plot
Prashant "Parshya" Kale is a backward-caste young boy whose father is a fisherman. He does well in school, and is captain of the local cricket team. Archana "Archi" Patil is the daughter of a wealthy, forward-caste landlord and politician. Headstrong and also academically proficient, she enjoys driving a tractor and motorcycle. As they study in college, they fall in love and find ways to spend time with each other.At a birthday celebration for Archi's younger brother, Prince, they meet in the backyard and are discovered by Archi's family. Her father, Tatya, beats Parshya and his friends. Realising that there is no way out, Archi and Parshya try to elope; they are discovered by the police, and are taken into custody. Tatya forces the police to register a false complaint that Archi was gang-raped by Parshya and his friends. Archi destroys the complaint, insisting that Parshya and his friends be released. Soon afterwards, Tatya's goons beat Parshya and his friends. Archi grabs a pistol from them, threatening to shoot unless Parshya and his friends are released. She and Parshya jump on a moving train and escape the confines of their small town to Hyderabad.
In the city, Archi and Parshya are broke and desperate. Surviving with what little they have, they are turned away from a lodge. The lovers sleep at the railway station, contemplating their next move. One night, several men awaken them and insist that they come to the police station. On the way, the men beat Parshya and one tries to rape Archi. A woman from a nearby slum, Suman Akka who lives with her young son, intervenes and saves Archi and Parshya from certain tragedy.
Akka offers Parshya and Archi a spare shack to live in, and helps Archi find employment in a bottling factory; Parshya begins working as a cook at Akka's dosa stall. Archi slowly learns Telugu with the help of her coworker, Pooja. She begins to feel homesick, and is uncomfortable living in the slums. Archi and Parshya earn a meager living, trying to make the most of their situation with love, but begin to argue. After a heated argument Archi decides to return home and Parshya almost hangs himself before Archi changes her mind and returns to him. They marry at the registrar's office, and Archi becomes pregnant.
Several years later, Parshya and Archi are better off financially and living in a better place. Archi phones her mother and hands the phone to her young son, Aakash. After the phone call, Prince and his relatives arrive with gifts from her mother in an apparent reconciliation. Aakash visits a neighbour; Archi and Parshya invite Prince and the other visitors into their flat, and serve them tea. Aakash returns with the neighbour who leaves him at his doorstep where Aakash sees the bodies of his parents on the floor, bloody and hacked to death.
Cast
- Rinku Rajguru as Archana "Archi" Patil
- Akash Thosar as Prashant "Parshya" Kale
- Tanaji Galgunde as Pradeep Bansode
- Arbaz Shaikh as Salim Shaikh
- Suresh Vishwakarma as Tatya, Archi's father
- Geeta Chavan as Archi's mother
- Jyoti Subhash as Saguna Aatya
- Chhaya Kadam as Suman Akka
- Anuja Muley as Annie
- Rubina Inamdar as Sapna
- Dhananjay Nanavare as Mangesh
- Suraj Pawar as Prince, Archi's younger brother
- Sambhaji Tangde as Parshya's father
- Vaibhavi Pardeshi as Parshya's mother
- Nagraj Manjule as a cricket commentator
- Pratik Kore as Parshya's Friend
- Bhushan Manjule as Shahi
Production
Development
Writer-director Nagraj Manjule wrote Sairat as a "classic love story" and a "story of impossible love", based on his own experiences of caste discrimination. He chose his own village, Jeur in Karmala Taluka of Solapur district, Maharashtra as the setting. Over two years, Manjule worked on 50 drafts of the screenplay before "intuition took over as the muse". Manjule said that the film is about "the challenges of an inter-caste romance, but in a mainstream format." He had begun working on the story of Sairat in 2009, but left it after he found it "boring". After writing the script, he read it to his family and friends and saw how it "moved people". Manjule finished the script in December 2014. The dialogue was written by his brother, Bharat.Manjule then directed Fandry, which was also based on caste discrimination. While editing it, he came across the story of Sairat after he realised that many people did not watch Fandry because of its lack of songs, and decided to make a more commercial film. He said that he wrote the script after much deliberation: "I will tell my story, but I will tell it your way and then you will watch it." Manjule decided to tell the story from a woman's perspective, since he was "fed up of the male-dominated culture and the films" with a "muscular hero saving the damsel in distress". He added "colour" to the character, making her strong because he also wanted to address gender bias in society. Manjule made Archi do what men do, and made Parshya "sensible and capable", "imbibing good qualities of women in men." Several scenes, such as Parshya jumping into a well, were drawn from Manjule's life. He called the film's title self-explanatory that might imply "freedom of thought, liberation and progressive ideas" for some and "sheer wildness and recklessness" for others. According to Manjule, the film's "takeaway" is that "lovers shouldn't be subjected to violence."
Casting
Manjule chose students with no acting background for the lead roles. 15 year old Rinku Rajguru went with her mother to see Manjule shoot a film in Akluj, her village in Solapur district. Her mother knew him, since he is from Solapur. Rajguru was introduced to Manjule, and was asked to audition. She auditioned with dialogue and dancing, and was selected as the female lead. Manjule gave her a year to work on her personality. She played the role of Archana Patil, an upper-caste girl who is the daughter of a wealthy village politician. Twenty-year-old graduate student Akash Thosar was cast as Prashant Kale after he met Bharat Manjule at a railway station and showed him some of his photos. It was shown to Nagraj; Thosar was summoned for auditions and eventually selected for the role of a lower-caste fisherman's son. Tanaji Galgunde and Arbaz Shaikh played supporting roles in the film, and Manjule made a cameo appearance as a cricket commentator.Filming
Filming began in February 2014, and ended in May 2015; several portions were shot in Hyderabad. It took nearly 70 days for the entire shoot, unusually long for a Marathi film. Manjule cited the reasons being a "lot of locations, a huge number of characters and many complicated crowd scenes" in the film. Thosar had difficulty crying on cue during the audition, and was tense filming the crying scene. Rajguru and Thosar lived with Manjule at his home in Pune for two to three months before filming, where they would discuss the script and rehearse scenes daily. Manjule said that they did not use glycerine, and actually cried while filming the emotional scenes; he made them understand the "layers in their characters".Manjule occasionally asked the actors what they would say they in a similar situation, prompting improvisation. The director of photography was Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti and Kutub Inamdar served as the editor. Sairat was produced by Nagraj Manjule's AatPat Productions and Zee Studios. Rajguru, in grade 10, left school for the duration of filming. About the film's ending, Manjule said that he used silence to demonstrate that "two people who are in love and happy can die suddenly." He shot the ending without dialogue or background score, because he wanted "the violence in the scene to hit the audience." Thosar was a bodybuilder, and had to lose weight for the role. Rajguru lost, and worked on her voice for the role. Thosar said that he was like the character of Prashant. Rajguru admired Archana, and said that she was "inspired to be as dashing as Archie."