‘Bhavai’ movie review: Mild like a Gujarati meal

Pratik Gandhi is the force that drives the film even when the journey becomes dull, with his intangible charm that captures even the unarticulated portions of the script

The uplifting story of Ram, Seeta and Ravan continues to inspire filmmakers. Some go by the text; others look for the subtext. No what if the textbook characters, while playing their parts, start subverting the epic?

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Bhavai, named after the traditional folk theatre popular in western India, exists in that disturbing space. In news for the controversy over its original title Ravan Leela, the film doesn’t aim to indulge those who love to debate the plurality of the epic. Instead, it seeks to address the faithful and check their unstinted devotion to the monochromatic depiction of the lord and the demon. Being set in a non-descript village in Gujarat, where there is no mobile network, it provides a fertile ground for the exercise. Like many villages in north India, the audience watching the Ramleela in Khakhar village can’t differentiate between the characters and the men playing them on the stage. They are mounted in such a way, that Ram can’t be questioned and Ravan can’t be justified. Once actor Arun Govil told this writer, when he was playing Ram in Ramanand Sagar’s series, he had to give up drinking wine in public.