Sairat

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.[3] Over two years, Manjule worked on 50 drafts of the screenplay before "intuition took over as the muse".[1] Manjule said that the film is about "the challenges of an inter-caste romance, but in a mainstream format."[4] He had begun working on the story of Sairat in 2009, but left it after he found it "boring".[5] After writing the script, he read it to his family and friends and saw how it "moved people".[6] Manjule finished the script in December 2014.[7] The dialogue was written by his brother, Bharat.[6]

Manjule then directed Fandry (2013), 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."[5] 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.[8] Manjule made Archi do what men do, and made Parshya "sensible and capable", "imbibing good qualities of women in men."[5] Several scenes, such as Parshya jumping into a well, were drawn from Manjule's life.[5] 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.[7] According to Manjule, the film's "takeaway" is that "lovers shouldn't be subjected to violence."[5]

Manjule chose students with no acting background for the lead roles.[1] 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.[9] Rajguru was introduced to Manjule, and was asked to audition. She auditioned with dialogue and dancing, and was selected as the female lead.[9] Manjule gave her a year to work on her personality.[10] She played the role of Archana Patil, an upper-caste girl who is the daughter of a wealthy village politician.[1] 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.[5] It was shown to Nagraj; Thosar was summoned for auditions and eventually selected for the role of a lower-caste fisherman's son.[1] Tanaji Galgunde and Arbaz Shaikh played supporting roles in the film, and Manjule made a cameo appearance as a cricket commentator.[11]

Sairat was filmed in Solapur.

Filming began in February 2014, and ended in May 2015;[3] several portions were shot in Hyderabad.[12] It took nearly 70 days for the entire shoot, usually long for a Marathi film.[7] Manjule cited the reasons being a "lot of locations, a huge number of characters and many complicated crowd scenes" in the film.[7] Thosar had difficulty crying on cue during the audition, and was tense filming the crying scene.[13] 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.[4][5] Manjule said that they did not use glycerine, and actually cried while filming the emotional scenes;[1] he made them understand the "layers in their characters".[1]

Manjule occasionally asked the actors what they would say they in a similar situation, prompting improvisation.[4] The director of photography was Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti and Kutub Inamdar served as the editor.[14] Sairat was produced by Nagraj Manjule's AatPat Productions and Zee Studios.[15] Rajguru, in grade 10, left school for the duration of filming.[16] 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."[5] He shot the ending without dialogue or background score, because he wanted "the violence in the scene to hit the audience."[17] Thosar was a bodybuilder, and had to lose weight for the role.[9] Rajguru lost 13 kilograms (29 lb), and worked on her voice for the role.[18][9] Thosar said that he was like the character of Prashant.[9] Rajguru admired Archana, and said that she was "inspired to be as dashing as Archie."[18]

Rajguru's performance was particularly praised by critics.

Sairat received critical acclaim, with particular praise for Rajguru's performance.[43][44] Meenakshi Shedde of Forbes India called the film "one of the great triumphs of Indian cinema this year", and a rare example of an "Indian director addressing caste issues from first-hand, lived experience, as distinct from that of a privileged, if empathetic, director."[45] Pratik Ghosh of Daily News and Analysis called it a "gem" which "enriched Marathi cinema". He praised Rajguru: "Sairat's remarkable find is the dusky Rinku Rajguru who is sterling as the fearless Archi."[46] Mihir Bhanage gave a positive review: "The film can be divided into two parts; the first one, a dream and the second one, reality and both strike a chord. But the masterstroke of Manjule the story-teller and director, is the climax."[47]

Harish Wankhede in his review in Tehelka called the film 'a radical entry in the populist-fantasy ‘love story’ genre.[48] However he argues that from the very beginning of the film, the female character takes a dynamic lead and gives the story a feminist-heroic tilt. Archi's courage and power is more male-like, vocal and aggressive than Parshya and his two friends. Her heroic posturing and confident outlook make her the lead hero of the film while pushing others to the periphery as dependent characters. The director allows Archie's character to break the stereotypes of a village girl but on the other hand asserts the power of her feudal-upper caste lineage. However, similar considerations are partially applied to her counterpart Dalit characters.[48]

Ganesh Matkari of Pune Mirror described the film as "significant", and not easy to "make or to grasp". Matkari expressed reservations about its length.[49] Divya Unny from OPEN wrote: "The three-hour-long film draws the audience in with plenty of songs and slow-mos, emotion and drama, and then serves us reality right when we aren’t expecting it."[50] Suprateek Chatterjee of HuffPost described it as "soaring" and "gut-wrenching", defying convention "even while sticking to established tropes".[51] J. Hurtado of ScreenAnarchy called the film a "singular, astonishing, breathtaking achievement": "You owe it to yourself to experience the beauty, exhaltation, and pain that Sairat has to offer".[52] Sowmya Rajendran of The News Minute cited it as a "brave film that gets to the root of the matter": "It could have been just another film made on the subject of forbidden teenage love but the maturity with which Nagraj Manjule has crafted his characters and narrative is breath-taking."[53] Uday Bhatia of Mint compared the film to Michael Haneke's Funny Games; "both derive their sting from the way they play with audience expectations—raising hopes, dashing them, then raising them again."[54]

Shweta Parande of India.com called Rajguru's performance "impressive".[55] Rochona Majumdar of The Indian Express wrote a positive review: "To describe it as a story of inter-caste love that ends brutally would be to do grave injustice to Manjule’s portrayal of a slice of contemporary India."[56] Suhas Bhasme of The Wire noted that Sairat positions the issues of "caste discrimination and caste-based violence centre stage, which have often been denied or overlooked by mainstream Marathi movies."[57] Baradwaj Rangan called the film a master class in "how to make the audience laugh, cry, swoon, eat out of your hand": "Sairat talks not just about the realities of caste and class, but of gender too."[58] According to Ranjib Mazumdar of The Quint, the film refreshingly changes gender roles with its strong female character: "[Archie] is like a body of free water, unaware of limits and customs, flowing with a convinced passion we rarely see in our heroines."[59] S. Shivakumar of The Hindu gave the film a positive review, praising Rajguru's performance and Manjule's direction: "Nagraj excels in making the dramatic scenes look realistic, effortlessly manipulating your emotions."[60]

Sairat earned ₹3.60 crore (US$450,000) on its opening day at the box office.[61] It earned ₹3.95 crore (US$490,000) on its second day and ₹4.55 crore (US$570,000) on its third day, with a total of ₹12.10 crore (US$1.5 million) on its opening weekend. The film earned ₹25.50 crore (US$3.2 million) in its first week.[62] Its screen count was increased from 400 to 450 in the second week, earning an additional ₹15.61 crore (US$2.0 million).[63] It earned a total of ₹41.11 crore (US$5.1 million) in its second weekend.[64] The film earned more than ₹65 crore (US$8.1 million) in three weeks, and entered its fourth week at more than 525 screens.[65] In addition to Maharashtra, it was released with subtitles in parts of Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi and Goa.[63] Sairat also did well on the overseas market. It earned a total of ₹14.58 lakh (US$18,000) at the US box office in four weeks.[66] The film earned ₹82.95 crore (US$10 million) in Maharashtra.[67] Made on a budget of ₹4 crore (US$500,000), Sairat earned a total of ₹110 crore (US$14 million) at the end of its theatrical run and is the highest-grossing Marathi film to date.[2]