I had bookmarked Deool on Primevideo. Got around to watching it last night in orig. Marathi w/Eng. Subs.
Deool deserves to be ranked as a Marathi film political classic, ahead of its time. The stellar cast and in fact every actor deliver their respective characters as though to the manor born.
A nondescript village (Mangrul) in what looks very much like a sweeping Satara-esque landscape albeit overgrazed and barren, is the location for this film.
A scruffy looking young man Keshya (Girish Kulkarni) on the lookout for his cow Karde, rests in the shade of a solitary tree. He is startled out of his sleepy reverie with a vision of the three headed Lord Dattatreya. Convinced that it is for real, Keshya races back to his village to announce his revelation. Some in the village are convinced, others take a more rational approach such as the respected Anna (Dilip Prabhavalkar) who assures Keshya that his faith may well have allowed him a vision of his God but it would be better to be quiet about it. The local politician Bhau (Nana Patekar) is encouraged by his MLA boss (Mohan Agashe) to seize this opportunity and make hay while the sun shines. Bhau aided by his supporters - a motley bunch of typical local characters superbly essayed by their respective actors , the lady sarpanch, Bhau's wife, Keshya's girlfriend, the village bhajan mandal and most others, make political and economic capital by building a fancy temple to Lord Dattatreya on the hillock next to the tree where Keshya had his vision, with a special enclosure for the 'holy cow' Karde. They auction the stalls lining the now well paved path to the temple. To cut a long story short, the temple is profitably commercialised; the entire village 'develops' and prospers, making a lot of money with an endless stream of pilgrims coming from far and wide. Mangrul has indeed arrived as a "Sacred" place on the pilgrimage circuit.
The idealistic Anna is disappointed as Bhau chose the temple for political gain instead of the promised hospital project and leaves the village for good. Mohan Agashe and Bhau rise politically. One day, Karde the cow falls ill and soon passes away. Keshya is heartbroken, inconsolable and disillusioned. He steals the idol of Dattatreya and runs away from the village, immersing his God in a far off river before returning home. Nasiruddin Shah appears in a blink and miss moment as a North Indian dacoit taking momentary refuge in some archaeological ruins on the outskirts of Mangrul. He is grateful to Keshya for giving him water.
The last frames show the hugely successful politicians and their supporters leading a huge crowd of pilgrims on a march to the top of the hillock and installing a new flashy idol of Lord Dattatreya .......
The characters are quite real, the story very convincing as indeed several such examples of commercially profitable Sacred places all over India reveal. The shrewd political sub plot is well played, as are the various relationships.
The movie is slow in parts, but other than that it is a well crafted film and deserves much wider publicity with multi language subtitling.
