Bhonsle is a 2018 Indian Hindi-language drama film written and directed by Devashish Makhija and co-produced by Piiyush Singh,[2]
The film stars Manoj Bajpayee in the title role: a retired Mumbai police officer who befriends a North Indian girl and her brother who are targeted among other migrants by local politicians. Its first look was launched at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.[3]
Constable Bhonsle retires from the Mumbai Police to live in a dilapidated chawl (a small apartment block for factory workers). He occasionally meets with his former superior about extending his service. An idol is shown being prepared for the ten-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival.
Homeless taxi driver Vilas is a foot soldier for a local political party which upholds local cultural identity, and blames migrants from North India for taking local jobs. He frequently gets into conflicts with Rajendra, who wants to lead the migrants. Vilas networks and unites influential locals to assert their identity. Bhonsle is respected in the community, but refuses to join Vilas.
Sita and her teenaged brother Lalu move next door to Bhonsle. Lalu refuses to join Rajendra's gang, but one night is tricked into vandalizing the billboard of Vilas's political party. The next day Vilas is irate and Lalu is frightened. After confessing to Sita, they inform Bhonsle who warns them that he will tell the police if it happens again.
A few days later, there is a grand procession for Ganesh Chaturthi which involves everyone from the chawl. Bhonsle collapses in his room from fading health. Lalu gathers their neighbours to take him to the hospital where Sita works, and she nurses him to health. She also takes care of the paperwork at his discharge, and he is given a discount on the assumption of being her family member. Bhonsle forms a bond with the siblings and helps Lalu secretly repaint the billboard. Sita receives Bhonsle's medical tests and informs him that he has a terminal brain tumor. Having acquired supplies to fix the billboard, Vilas takes credit when he finds it repainted in the morning. Bhonsle exposes his lie, and Vilas is humiliated that Bhonsle took the migrants side instead of his own.
Bhonsle is heartbroken when he is informed that his service extension with the police is contingent on a medical check-up. As Sita returns from her night shift, Vilas kidnaps her and then rapes her. Bhonsle finds Sita badly injured, and confronts Vilas, finding bloodstains in his taxi. The two fight and are both fatally injured, while on the last day of Ganesh Chaturthi the idol is sunk into the ocean.
Makhija started writing the script of Bhonsle in 2011 and completed it in 2015 but could not gain interest from producers. In 2016, Makhija directed an 11-minute short film titled Taandav starring Manoj Bajpayee, about a head constable who breaks out into a dance to deal with the strains of his life.[5] Bajpayee had suggested him to make a short "to prove that they could carry off the idea".[5] Makhija said that he made the short because he was not able to make Bhonsle. He said that the purpose of the short was to "show the world that a film about a havaldar (constable) could be interesting."[5] Makhija took inspiration for Bhonsale's mannerisms from his father who had become "something else" after Makhija left for Mumbai from his hometown Kolkata.[5] The script was selected by the National Film Development Corporation of India for their event, Film Bazaar in 2016.[12]
The film's principal photography began on 21 October 2017. The Ganpati festival scene was shot for two days in Mumbai in August, forming a backdrop in the film.[13] For the pullout shot on the day of the Ganpati immersion, Bajpayee was placed in the crowd of 70,000 people. The scene took six retakes to complete and throughout the shoot no one recognised Bajpayee.[5] The filming was completed in late December 2017.[14] Several scenes were shot in closed narrow spaces as Makhija wanted to "create a sense of suffocation".[5]
Reception
Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter praised Bajpayee's performance in the film and said that his "hermit retiree emerges as a quiet-spoken hero who opposes the racist hate-mongering around him with cool disdain." She felt that the film "builds tension well as it goes along", but called its first half "punishing".[15] Anupam Kant Verma of Firstpost wrote: "To Makhija’s peculiar blend of technical proficiency and poetic beats, Bajpayee brings the gravitas and masterful restraint that tugs at the kite of the director’s imagination the moment it threatens to pull away, in effect, harmonising the film experience."[16] J. Hurtado of Screen Anarchy wrote: "It's an exceptional film bolstered by a nearly silent performance from Manoj Bajpayee, one of India's finest actors, who also stepped in to produce the film when things were looking dire during production." He also included it in his list of 14 Favorite Indian Films of 2018.[17][18]
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