Peneflix MOVIE REVIEWS BY PENEFLIX
Abashedly, I have neglected Bollywood in this era of pandemic trouncing, but director Rohena Gera’s 2018 “Sir”, has awakened my longing for the scents and enchantments of multi-faceted India: murky, mystical, poignant pollution seizes with its ineluctable tentacles, as one exits the airport, slipping into the blackest of night’s moments; if open to its charismatic, beguiling caprices, a part of one is forever lost in its captivating, enthralling aura.
“Sir” gifts viewers one of the screen’s most bewitching protagonists, “Ratna” (award winning portrait by Tillotama Shome), a widow (hordes treated abysmally and considered inauspicious) from a small village, employed in a Brahmin household in Mumbai; she is subservient, kind, and innately good; her wages contribute to her sister’s education; her employer “Ashwin” (Vivek Gomber), morose after a cancelled wedding finds comfort in her attentiveness, industry, awareness of human frailties; unseen by family members, her caste solidifies her invisibility; Ashwin, sees beyond her circumstances, recognizing attributes others would not bother to observe; he purely, simply falls in love with her. Wisdom seethes at the core of “Sir”; Ratna is not a Bollywood beauty; her glow emanates from her caring soul, uncluttered by life’s trivialities; she is an aphrodisiac for Ashwin’s ennui.
“Sir” with Gera’s feminine perspective erases the tableaus, segregating the castes, opening, and championing the time proven axiom of attraction between opposites.
FOUR STARS!!!!
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