REVIEW QUARTER (Marathi Short film)

Producer- Namrata Bandiwadekar

Director- Navjyot Bandiwadekar

Star Cast- Girija Oak Godbole

Genre- Social

Rating- ***

Platform- Navigns You Tube Channel

On Obsession & Sense of Longing!

Jyothi Venkatesh

The latest 15 minute long short film Quarter in Marathi is like a whiff of fragrance amidst several Marathi films which centre on rural talks. Quarter is all about a tale of existence, a tale of obsession and also an intriguing tale of longing. In wine shops, since a quarter is a 180 ml alcohol sold in a bottle, ‘Quarter’ is an interesting and watchable out and out one woman show short-film on addiction! It is a film which sets out to speak volumes about the versatility of actor Girija Oak Godbole.

The film sets out to deal with the subject of obsession or addiction or for that matter an extreme sense of longing in society. Since most of us are addicted in our real lives to some kind of vice or the other, everyone’s interpretation of addiction is quite different. While some addicts go into their own shelves, some become lions or lionesses.In this cute short film shot brilliantly by DOP Yash Khanna entirely on two nights, actress Girija Oak Godbole plays a housewife who is shown as an addict to alcohol (She even makes it a point to keep not just one but two bottles of whisky besides her bed every night.

Without using too many dialogues, Girija who plays the role of the housewife who is going through the process of getting a mutual divorce from her estranged husband succeeds in etching her role with a lot of expression subtly. While the story and screenplay of this short film has been written by Alaap Bhagwat, young director Navjyot Bandiwadekar, who has till date directed, edited, written and also handled the camera for several short films, documentaries and informative films impresses us with his takings and sets out to show how addiction can make a person go haywire without setting out to preach in the process.

Mention must also be made of Ashish Mhatre and Apoorva Motiwale who have edited the film slickly while Vivian Richards has composed the music. The sound design is by Anmol Bhave. To sum up, in these days of enforced lockdown when you would not be lucky to lay your hands of a quarter, definitely it is an effort worth watching!