danav [march 25, 2005]

I wonder how many people have heard of Makrand Deshpande's Danav. There are people like me who follow Vishal Bhardwaj's work. There are those who know about MD's theatrical side, the plays he has written and staged. And perhaps there are those who follow adaptations of theatrical works steeped in mythology and old lore (remember Agni Varsha?). Some of us are lucky to transcend simply having heard of the film. We get to watch it. Surprise, surprise. It made it to DVD. The film stars Sonali Kulkarni (whose extremely Marathi demeanour still grates), Sayaji Shinde and Aryan Vaid. There's just one song (a.nga.Daa_ii) penned by Javed Akhtar and rendered with shrieky fervour by Asha Bhosle (spelled "Bhonsle"). A much better alternative comes from the background vocals featuring Aarti Anklikar Tikkekar. I failed to discern any allegories in the script, but the theatrical nature of the proceedings was unfortunately apparent. Despite the presence of Chandan Arora (RGV's assistant who made his directorial début with the mostly satisfying MMDBCH) on the editing front, the film remains jerky, uneven, and often hasty. Would have worked wonderfully as a play, but it doesn't quite work as a film. Bad subtitle alert: golden is the hay/and the company is gay. Alert viewers may note that the songs were recorded by Kay Jay (K J Singh, most probably).