NO SPOILERS :)
PLOT — A newly arrived migrant is recruited as a monkey repeller to get rid of hundreds of monkeys around the Indian ministry buildings. The job and the city compels him to experience extreme phases in his life, both psychologically and socially.
Ee Kahan narak mein laake phenk diye hain (You have thrown me into hell).
CRITIQUE
The selling point of the film is its strong, continuous and poignant satire that flows all along the film, covering important social issues pertaining in the largest democracy of the world, India. The utter realism in the film is unmatched and unprecedented. Not once, Shardul Bhardwaj or any other actor has given a chance to make their audience feel that, this is a film. The film seems like a real incident taking place in front of our eyes, seen as upside down. A world where migrant workers twist their life for a stable job, searching for basic dignity, and majorly failing in it experiencing grave humiliation and hopelessness which engrains anger, frustration and bitterness within. Every emotion is spectacularly expressed by Anjani (Shardul), the protagonist.
Even if we swim away from the main storyline and look more closely at the skeleton, and the social milieu of the film, the parts played by Shashi Bhushan, and Nutan Sinha are equally brilliant, real and immersive. It seems like, every character as a migrant is seeking some meaning out of the life obnoxiously bestowed upon them by their host city. The movie entails the narrative of hope and ambitions with which people in India migrate from village to cities, and devilishly get trapped, hanging single-handedly from a broken branch of a dead tree.
Wow! What a film. Prateek vats, an alum from Film and Television Institute of India has brilliantly decorated the film with intricate details, with each detail contributing extensively to the entire magnum opus. The writing is subtle, required and never disappointing throughout the film. Anjani comes up with new unconventional ideas to deal with his job as a monkey repeller. In India or in Hindu religion, which is per se predominant religion in India, monkeys are treated as descendants of lord Hanuman, who himself is a reincarnation of one among the trinity, Lord Shiva. This particular fact itself has acted as one of the main conflict in the character’s life.
One incident where Mahinder, Anjani’s mentor is lynched to death just because he tried hitting a stubborn monkey using a gulel (catapult) shows the inherited priority set in the minds of Indians which places a monkey, or in fact a cow above human lives. Eeb Allay Ooo is one of the most unfilmable film made in the history of cinema. The creativity matches with that of the old cinema veterans who had to fool the audience visually as well as through auditory. Saumyananda Sahi, the cinematographer has played a major role in it. The play of fear and authority between Anjani and the monkeys, was the most difficult of all to shoot.
The film is highly impactful, and at times when thousands of migrant workers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and many other states of India has walked an exodus of thousands of kilometres to reach back their home with no governmental support, sympathy or even acknowledgment, during the time of sudden, panicked and unplanned lockdown. The movie is extremely hooking in nature. The story is undoubtedly unique, and so is the structure of its storytelling. A MUST WATCH.
Read the entire review, breakdown, and critical analysis of the 2020 Satirical film, Eeb Allay Ooo on UNFILMY. If you liked this critique, Kindly upvote, share and visit again. :)
