City of Gold - Must Watch Film

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**City of Gold (Lalbaug Parel in Marathi) **is a 2010 **Hindi movie **directed by **Mahesh Manjrekar **with **Ankush Choudhary, Siddharth Jadhav, Sachin Khedekar, Seema Biswas **in lead roles. Read the **film review **at CalcuttaTube.

Starring: Ankush Choudhary, Siddharth Jadhav, Sachin Khedekar, Sameer Dharmadhikari, Karan Patel, Seema Biswas, Shashank Shende and Vinay Apte

Director: Mahesh Manjrekar

Set in the early 80s, City of Gold narrates the tale of mill workers who lost their daily livelihood thanks to the greedy mill owners who were hand in glove with the government officials and Ministers.

Anna (Shashank Shende) and his wife (Seema Biswas) hit hard times after the closure of Khaitan Mill. They have four children, playwright Baba (Ankush Choudhary), bank peon Mohan (Vinit Kumar), beauty parlour employee Manju (Veena Jhamkar) and Naru (Karan Patel) who is a good for nothing turned small goon. Along with his friend Speedbreaker, (Siddharth Jadhav), Naru indulges in bhaigiri and is the only one who succeeds in bringing in some money whenever needed. Manju has an affair with the local bania’s married son and becomes pregnant. This shocks Anna so much, he suffers a stroke and is paralysed. Meanwhile, Mohan is having an affair with Mama’s (Satish Kaushik) wife (Kashmera Shah), who eventually delivers her lover’s child. However, the mill workers continue to suffer with one family committing suicide. Union leader Rane (Sachin Khedekar) tries to persuade the mill owners to reopen the mills but they are adamant on building residential towers on the land. How the fight between mill workers and owners ruins lives of both sections forms the rest of the drama.

Mahesh Manjrekar deserves kudos for attempting such a film which exposes the nexus between the mill owners, politicians and corrupt bureaucrats. It’s a dark reality that till date there are thousands of families that have suffered due to the untimely shut down of such mills. Manjrekar has chosen to focus on one such family in the film, the Dhuri family. The narrative is pacy in the first half but gets very violent in the second half as the proceedings get grittier. Full marks to Manjrekar and his team for mounting early 80s Mumbai without resorting to gimmicks of any sorts. Right from clothing style to transistors to old Black and White TV, all are straight out of 80s real life. The script however is the main hero of the film. With so many multiple tracks running parallel, it’s a tough job to balance it all out right till the end but the Manjrekar and his writer Jayant Pawar have managed it well. There is a good lavni during the opening titles of the film featuring Resham Tipnis.

There is a huge ensemble cast with each and every one pitching in their best. The best performers are Siddharth Jadhav, Karan Patel, Seema Biswas and Sachin Khedekar. Samir Dharmadhikari playing the evil mill owner is impressive too.

It is a must watch film for those who like serious cinema and have no idea what once stood in Mumbai’s Lalbaug Parel area where now stand huge multi storeyed towers and corporate offices. It’s a great come back to form by Mahesh Manjrekar after a long gap.

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Re: City of Gold - Must Watch Film

A gritty story about the city’s mill workers. It’s hard-hitting, but the melodrama will test your patience.

Manjrekar knows his turf well. He is a Maharashtrian, who has directed and produced many Marathi films, including the blockbuster Mee Shivaji Raaje Bhosale Boltoy (2009). His earlier Hindi films, including his finest, the award-winning Vaastav (1999), was also set in a chawl at a time when the underworld’s power over the city was at its peak.
Manjrekar knows the language and manners of the chawl Mumbaikar and what makes life here vibrant and precarious. All his best films have pluck and a loud dynamism, almost always bordering on melodrama. City of Gold is no different, although it’s far inferior to Vaastav—*Manjrekar made *City of Gold in Marathi as Lalbaug Parel, which released earlier this month and has been a success.

The milieu, dialogues, pronunciation, costumes and characterization couldn’t have got more real. Manjrekar is not dealing with the unfamiliar here. There are sweeping shots of the religious parades during the annual Ganeshotsav in central Mumbai—where, famously, “Lalbaug sa raja”, a legendary Ganesh idol, is taken for immersion in the sea on the last day of the festival amid great pomp and chaos. The performances in the film are consistently good; every actor is in character throughout. Biswas, Ketan Patel as Naru, one of the sons; Khedekar, who plays the failed ideologue; Veena Jamkar as the stoic daughter Manju; and Siddharth Jadhav as a speech-disabled laughing stock who finally turns violent, deserve special mention. The film also celebrates the blatant earthiness and never-say-die spirit of the Maharashtrian woman—the three main leading women in the film are unputdownable till the end.

But when it comes to executing the story, Manjrekar is unsure and inconsistent. He begins by establishing, in detail, the character of each member of the family, in turn lending a distinct character to the family and their home. But even before the second half begins, the loud histrionics typical of bad Hindi films of the 1980s begin to drag the film down. Towards the end of the second half, it is so uneven in pitch and pace that I began to disconnect with the characters. The end is ludicrous and takes away much of the spunk it began with.

This week, seven Hindi films released in theatres—six of them are concerned with some aspect of life in Mumbai. City of Gold is based on a subject so real and relevant that just attempting it deserves some kudos. Manjrekar, who co-wrote the film, is unequivocally sympathetic to the wronged mazdoor (labourer), making the “capitalist” look like a facile, money-mongering monster—a valid position to take, as long as the art which drives it is not hurried, confused and within headache-inducing limits. Watch City of Gold only if you can get past the noise to appreciate a subject that deserves much more than a film.