Balgandharva, the eminent towering singer from the bygone golden era of Marathi "sangeet natak" (musical dramas) definitely deserved some modern celluloid space. This film does well to document his life, the younger generation who is unaware of his charisma will get to know him.
The film chronicles his life , his acting career well. It gives a good overview of how the drama companies were run and how he influenced the running. His values and character stand out amidst all the tragedies in his life.
As a film, i found the production values to be pretty high and the makers have ensured that nowhere are the sets, costumes compromised upon. Where i found the film a bit lacking was in the editing part. Many times you loose context, for people who do not know the background of his life and times, some scenes may not provide the impact they require to. The editing could definitely have been better, it would have been a nicer film, if the flow seemed natural. Also ,though the drama part is well depicted, his singing seemed a bit ignored to me. The film has some excellently sung songs by Anand Bhate, Rahul Deshpande and co. But the reason why the people were taken over by him in that era was his singing, it was supposed to be divine. Some scenes, which could have shown his musical upbringing, his teachers (bakhale bua is there for a brief scene, but for the un-initiated he would be just another character and not the God-gifted singer, who honed balgandharvas' talent) and their contribution, brief elaboration on the technical aspects via scenes or dialogs on why Balgandharva's singing was like no other and generations of Marathi audiences revere him could have been made clearer.
Some of the characters in the film, which may be known to "Sangeet natak" fans or people from that age, i felt needed better introduction for the sake of the younger generation. I think the director has taken poetic license in many places in terms of depiction of these surrounding characters.
The best part was after the movie ends,along with the credits, rare photographs of "balgandharva" are shown , and I witnessed the audience which is normally eager to leave the hall after a movie, standing still in pin drop silence seeing those photographs. It still shows how special a place Balgandharva has in people's hearts.
They say Gandharva are "shaapit" (cursed) people, with great singing talent, the tragic life of this "shaapit" gandharva has been brought alive in this movie. 8/10 from me for this effort.
