Directors' Note: 'Nital means transparent.....Crystal clear....
Nital, which literally means transparent, so clear…that one can see the base. It is a portrait of inner beauty, the inner self, which is hidden beneath the obviously visible outer coat-skin.
It touches the crux of the issue of self image and acceptance, thus the need to redefine our arena of ‘vision’, where different senses of body emboss different perceptions of beauty.
The story reflects undercurrents of contradictions and confusions of so called sophisticated, civilised and elite people, who are directed by social stereotypes, while those who are closer to nature have much more acceptance for people as ‘humans’.'
This is story of Dr. Neeraja, a young and intelligent opthalmologist, who has vitiligo (white patches on her skin, face especially). Though medically vitiligo is just the lack of a skin pigment, it affects the entire identity of a person. The story unwinds itself, portraying societal insensitivity and cowardice. On the other hand, it illustrates rationality emerging in younger generation about vitiligo.
An interesting thing about this movie is that, there are lot many characters as joint family members coming from diverse professional, social, 'cultural' backgrounds and age. Inspite of this everyone of them has very clear, precise and appropriate thought process which is put together very well in movie. Most of the actors are from theatre, so acting is obviously very good. Music is also very good. Actually simplicity is the base of this movie, it can be seen in music, production design, cinematography, dialogues, costumes and still everything looks so apt and beautiful!
I feel the time I spent watching this movie and compiling this review is quite worth! :)
Most of the information and pictures here are from the
official website of Nital, and the movie is also available with subtitles.
Movie: Nital (नितळ) (marathi movie)
Genre: Social
Release Year: 2007
Director: Sumitra Bhave, Suneel Sukathankar
Lyrics: Suneel Sukathankar
Music: Shreerang Umarani
Singers: Amruta Subhash, Dr. Shekhar Kulkarni, Parth Umarani, Dr. Supriya Gadekar, Sujeet Soman, Jyoti Subhash
Cast: Devika Daftaradar, Dr.Shekhar Kulkarni, Vijay Tendulkar, Deepa Shreeram, Uttara Bavkar, Vikram Gokhale, Jyoti Subhash, Reema, Neena Kulkarni, Ravindra Mankani, Kishor Kadam, Amruta Subhash, Aabha Oati, Sarang Sathye, Sujeet Soman
According to this webpage, there's no privacy in sleeper class, and it's noisy, crowded and dirty. But trust me, you get an option (or rather variety) of listening to families discussing personal matter for all compartment to listen, or adult friends who keep you guessing if they are fighting or joking, or the loud mothers of innocent (and loud) kids playing.... throughout the night.
