| Release Date: 30 May 2020 (USA) Genre: Comedy, Drama IMDb Rating: 7.5 Director: Prateek Vats Cast: Shardul Bharadwaj, Naina Sareen, Nutan Sinha |
A number of International Film Festivals recently came together for an online film festival, the ‘We Are One’ Film Festival, providing an opportunity to watch some really interesting movies from across the globe. Eeb Allay Ooo! was one of the Indian submissions that I had the chance of watching, a brilliant satirical take on the migrant crisis of Delhi told through the perspective of a monkey catcher’s experiences.
Anjani, a migrant newly arrived in Delhi staying with his sister and her husband, gets a job as a ‘monkey catcher’ aimed at tackling the monkey menace in the city. That immediately puts Anjani in a position of benefit over other similar workers who have a hard time getting a job, and on top of that in the words of his sister, Anjani’s job is a ‘government job’, something she is happy to brag about. But it is not as easy as it may seem, and through Anjani’s experiences, the movie makes us question is it really the monkey who is responsible for the monkey menace as it holds up an image of the ground reality of the Indian class divide.
As the movie starts, Mahender, an expert at monkey catching with whom Anjani later becomes friends with, is shown teaching him the three words monkey catchers use to scare them, the titular words, ‘Eeb Allay Ooo’, but Anjani unable to effectively say those words, resorts to unique means to get his job done effectively, but one that brings further ire from his boss.
Beneath the humour the movie presents in the form of the various attempts that Anjani makes at improving his monkey catching game, there lies a serious examination of the conditions of migrants, as through the way Anjani starts getting treated, we are left to ponder if a human life can mean less than a monkey’s life. His Brother in Law has his own story part with a gun he is supposed to be carrying as a security officer which leads to a conflict between him and his wife, i.e. Anjani’s sister.
Everything works hand in hand to create the complex portrayal of how different sections of society have different sets of aspirations and makes you examine what you define as your life’s difficulties, as Anjani goes further down the rabbit hole leading all the way up to a terrific ending, which acts as a peak for Shardul Bharadwaj’s terrific performance in the lead and the amazing sound design of the movie to leave you with an haunting after taste. Besides Bharadwaj, the entire ensemble is also to be credited for their performances.
As for the downsides, Anjani’s character arc is a bit uneven, when sometimes it feels like his character growth has receded and his new love interest is a bit underutilized.
Besides that a few scenes could have been edited better for a greater impact, but it is still pretty impressive how much Vats has managed to achieve with his debut, to create a brilliantly made movie and one of the finest Indian movies of 2019, that I have seen.
My Verdict:
