‘The child’ of new Marathi cinema

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed a resurgence of Marathi cinema, and narratives focused on childhood have been one of its dominant strands. In films like Tingya (2008), Shala (2012), Balak Palak (2013), 72 mile ek Pravas (2013), and Fandry (2013), the vulnerabilities of childhood become the matrix of historic transformations in material experience, lifestyle and perception. Interestingly, these films responding to local and regional concerns register the transformation of the region because of neo-liberalism. The films’ investment in childhood seems to be along two distinct but sometimes intertwining axes of desire. One is the site of the sexual in the child and the other invests in the child’s spatial and affective relation with the land of the region, the rural village/small town on the cusp of a social-economic transformation. With a focus on Fandry, this article examines some of the textual strategies and tropes of this cinematic moment.