Aapla Manus - Suicide can be hazardous to your health

 

 

Aapla Manus

(Our Man)

 

Marathi, 2018

 

Directed by Satish Rajwade

 

Stars Nana Patekar, Sumeet Raghavan, Iravati Harshe

 

Mohan's Measure ✼

 

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me three times, then shame on the movie director.

 

Aapla Manas starts off feeling as if Marathi cinema is ready to compete with the big boys.  Featuring the legendary Mr. Patekar taking on two complex roles, the movie begins as a noir detective mystery, with the actor playing both the detective, in present, and the victim, in flashback.  

 

With fine support performances by Mr. Raghavan and Ms. Harshe, the movie parallels the plot and characterizations of the original stage play, unraveling, layer-by-devious layer, the complex background leading to an apparent attempted suicide by jumping. What transpires makes the audience come up with different scenarios; and, like a mind reader, the director plays each possibility out, until the truth is revealed at the end.

 

The problem is the possibilities all center around a very weak motive - dysfunctional family disputes.  That these disputes do not involve money, property or even revenge does not justify suicide, what to speak of the attempted murder which is suggested.    

And, it is in suggesting that this be the plot as to end in soliloquy about family values, is for us to think less than wholesome thoughts about the film.