दिठी

Sound Design - Top Notch

Music - Awakening

Story - The more you Dig the more you get

Cinematography - Brilliant.

Dithee (2021) : Brief Review -

Sumitra Bhave's farewell affair is another Eminent Classic by her. An engrossing Human drama of Self-realization and non-duality of life and death. If you have seen Sumitra Bhave's earlier works then you know exactly what to expect from Dithee and I assure you, you are in for a fulfilling ride. Unfortunately, Dithee is the last film of this genius filmmaker who has delivered many substantial classics before (some of them were shared with Sunil Sukathankar). Dithee is about a religious ironsmith's journey of undergoing the pain of his son's death and experiencing the non-duality of life and death. It is an life-changing melodrama that gambles with religious beliefs and human sentiments in orderly manners. One of the major highlights of the film is self-realization of the religious soul who has lost his faith in God, and it takes him motherhood chapter of a cow and his daughter-in-law for the remication. After the top notch writing and heavily toned screenplay, Dithee is blessed by the Power-packed performances of all the actors. The leading horse is Kishore Kadam. He nails it like he was born to live this character on screen. After him, all the supporting cast members deserves immense praise. Amruta Subhash, Girish Kulkarni, Mohan Agashe, Shashank Shende and Dilip Prabhavalkar these all are great actors already but here even in small roles they didn't disappoint. Bhave's direction is highly artistic. More than dialogues, it's those silent frames who speak loudly. It takes a smart brain to understand her directorial genius. It's not like you can understand the scene just by listening to dialogues or seeing visuals, it's about realising the profound meaning of it and seeing several other untold things. Dithee is not a complicated film but it is definitely subtle. You just have to understand the pain, salvation and compassion behind it and then there's nothing that can stop you from giving it a tag of 'A Classic'.

RATING - 8/10*

By - #samthebestest.

A most lyrical film, portraying man, god ,animal, nature, life and death in an eternal bond.

The scent is the nose and can taste itself. The sound itself becomes the ear and can hear itself. Mirror eyes and vision become one. The head itself smells like chaff. The tongue itself becomes a taste, the chakra itself becomes a moon and the moon itself, the flowers themselves become an illusion, the young woman herself becomes a male and can enjoy her own femininity.

Dithee (Vision) failed to impress me despite its important messaging about the nonduality of life and death. The camera work is especially problematic with the shaky scenes making it difficult for me to follow them. Director Sumitra Bhave's Marathi drama is philosophical where a man is shown grieving after having lost his son in floods but the long, humdrum shots towards the end are just too unbearable. The final minutes close the film wonderfully, though. TN.

(Watched and reviewed at its premiere at the 21st MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.)