To be honest, the decisive factors for revisiting Hun Hunshi Hunshilal (Love In the time of Malaria) for me is because of the actor Dilip Joshi whose birthday is today. I saw many trends and mentions, sadly there was not even a single note about this film. I admit, I moved away from the film after watching it during the 1st wave. Just few scenes were in front of my eyes. Like the press meet where a journalist questions the King, asking him who will will go to war with after killing all the mosquitoes. Even the butterfly scene in the finale followed by the song and the closing.
Anyway, I watched it today and it just hit harder now, in the good and bad sense of the word. I was not disappointed - although, to be honest, I didn't like the songs, it was slightly excessive. But - this is actually an amazing film!
It's not a surprise that this work of his never mentioned and is overshadowed by others in his filmography. I have never followed or watched any of his famous 'Jethalal' series but i know it's has a humongous following especially with the meme community. "Love in the Time of Malaria" is a movie that breaks stereotypes in its subject, explores genres in this case about, politics and musical. To be frank, it felt relevant with themes of fascism, resistance, class division, rebellion, love and the devastation caused by the suppression. It's like a weird blend of Kamal Swaroop, William Klein, Michael Radford and Richard Lester.
The description looks interesting - in the Totalitarian kingdom of Khojpuri ruled by the King Bhadrabhoop. The common public have no clue about the draconian measures, they are suppressed, consolidating the powers, banning everything (including dreaming) that upsets the regime. The Mosquitoes are the worst enemy as they have the power to distarct the people and turn them into rebels or thinkers. The king decides to wage a war and eradicate them completely. The people are given a good brainwashing and made into puppets that are convenient to control. The protagonist Hinshilal (Dilip Joshi) draws special attention to himself. He relocates to Khojpuri to work at Queen's Lab and creates a mosquito-repellent made from onions, the appreciations follow, then we have a the fellow scientist who piques the interest of Hunshilal as he starts falling for her. She belongs to the clan of the red anarchist mosquitoes. On the other hand, the king starts a daily war with mise-en-scenes, theatrics and bans dreaming, eliminating ideas, and the red creatures. At some point, Hunshilal begins to realize so many things, gets bitten by the mosquitoes and wants to show empathy.
To summarize: the film, despite minor flaws, especially the excessive songs by Rajat Dholakia (also the composer of one of my Favourite films ever Om Dar-Ba-Dar.) this is very worthy of viewing, both for the fans of Dilip Joshi and for the purpose of discovering a hidden gem.
