Gamak Ghar (Lively House) is a film that most will love to hate because at first look it appears to be a slideshow. A slideshow of beautiful images and GIFs with audio shot by Anand Bansal but still a slideshow that centers around a house and follows its occupants and the changing times from 1998 to 2010 to 2019 over which it has undergone several changes including an attack by the water gods. An extremely slow-paced, ambient film that is about the significance of erosion in our lives. How a house that was once so lively and filled with the chatter of the elders, the incense of the food frying in the kitchen along with the quips of those who make them, the hullabaloo of the kids changes its own appearance when people grow up and time moves. Age is the central theme of Gamak Ghar but more than a film about a story it is a film about transition of a house for good or worse depending upon how the dwellers take care of it and experience a change in their own lives. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the shots - lush mangoes set in the store room, a dawn with mist still hanging, a game of nostalgia, and genuine conversations and banter between family. It's a film that will take you back and will make you wish you had stayed there through some time travel machine. But go with at least a quintal of patience and you will experience time travel for at least 90 minutes. Achal Mishra and his crew have made a film that is mature and significant and true to the art. TN.
(Watched and reviewed at its India premiere at the 21st MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.
