ABSTRACT
Sairat narrates a story of the passionate, but, ultimately, doomed romance of college going youngsters, Archana Patil aka Archi, a powerful ‘uppercaste’ landlord politician’s daughter and Parshant Kale aka Parshya, a ‘lower caste’ fisherman’s son. More than anything else, by reinventing romance and the feminine agency central to its transgressive force, the film queries Marathi cinema’s limited and skewed traction with femininity. The evolution of the independent cinema in India across national, regional and linguistic markets and spaces is by a critical common sense. In terms of the theme of star-crossed love, production values and big budget, Sairat is fashioned on the lines of Bollywood films, while, in terms of its weaving its love story with social issues, it has antecedents in Marathi cinema as well. Beyond equations of success, Sairat’s braiding of the two aesthetic modes, splitting the narrative diegesis, generates a productive tension.
