I’ll admit it: when a film arrives wearing ‘India’s official Oscar entry,’ I expect something weighty, important and a little distant. The Gondhal trailer flips that. It feels urgent, humid and slightly dangerous, like a folk ritual you’re not sure you should be watching.
What we’re looking at is the first feature from writer-director Santosh Davakhar, a Marathi-language thriller set over one night in rural Maharashtra during a Gondhal — a devotional ritual built on song, dance and storytelling. It was chosen from 33 films to represent India at the 99th Academy Awards and releases on 14 November. The cast is led by Ishita Deshmukh as Suman, a young wife trapped in a suffocating marriage, with Nishad Bhoir as her lover Sarjerao, plus Kishor Kadam, Yogesh Sohoni and Anuj Prabhu around them.
The trailer promises atmosphere over exposition. You get the heat of the ritual, the weight of the marriage, and a woman trying to take back control by using the very fixation that could destroy her. What it wisely holds back is the tragedy everyone keeps hinting at. We know the night ends badly, but we do not know who pays, or how much of Suman’s agency survives. That restraint is the most confident thing about it.
The moment everyone will be talking about is not a plot beat. It is the Gondhal itself: a celebration that slowly starts to feel like a witness, and maybe a tribunal. Add in Amalendu Chaudhary’s camera, which opens the film with a 25-minute unbroken take, and this looks built for the big screen rather than a quick streaming browse.
‘India is also a civilization of extraordinary cultural wealth, sustained by traditions, music, and collective memory,’ Davakhar says.
For Davakhar and his banner Davakhar Films, this is a declaration of intent. He won the Silver Peacock for best director at IFFI, where jury members called the film ‘like a Shakespearean fable set in a real world.’ Composer Ilaiyaraaja’s score should be a draw on its own. For Ishita Deshmukh, this is the kind of centre-frame role that could introduce her to audiences far beyond Marathi cinema.
Honest verdict? I am not going to call the Oscars off a two-minute trailer. But Gondhal looks like exactly the kind of Indian cinema I keep asking for: culturally specific, visually ambitious and unafraid of a dark ending. Worth the ticket? Yes — especially in a theatre, where the sound and the single-night tension can do their work.
Watch the original: Rajshri Marathi on YouTube
Source: Variety
