An Eye-Opener for the Young Karyakartas
Ratings: – * * * *
Perhaps for the first time in the history of Indian cinema, lookalikes of real life politicians with their real story and real self are shown in an amazingly appealing and enlightening manner. For this reason alone, Avdhut Gupte’s Zenda deserves a huge thumbs-up for the fearlessness he has shown.
Kakasaheb (aging leader of the political party Jan Sena) prefers his son Prashant Sarpotdar (Pushkar Shrotri) over his nephew Rajesh Sarpotdar (Rajesh Shringarpure) to lead the party. This was enough for Rajesh to separate from Jan Sena and start his own political party called Maharashtra Samrajya Sena. The film also follows the story of two young Jan Sena activists Umesh (Siddharth Chandekar) and his friend (played by Santosh Juvekar), who are as close as brothers.
Apart from doing the daring act of showing the characters of Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray on screen, Gupte has produced a script which doesn’t go off-track even for a minute. Plus, as a director, he creates some extraordinarily realistic and artistic scenes which keeps the vision appealing throughout. Gupte’s triumph doesn’t end here; he even excels as a music director. The tracks Konacha Zenda Gheu Haati and Saavdhan suit the mood of the film perfectly. The impressive cinematography and background make the tale more appealing.
Rajesh Shringarpure (of Sarkaar Raj fame) is an actor to watch. His expressions, dialogue delivery and gestures force you not to remove your eyes from him. Siddharth Chandekar, who plays an educated party worker, does the difficult task of speaking through his expressions. A really promising find. Santosh Juvekar in a role of a fanatic party worker suits perfectly as he moulds himself into the role and how!
Despite such excelling performers, Chinmay Mandlekar manages to get noticed because of his mature performance. His acts in the pre-climax sessions are too good. Rest of the supporting cast – Pushkar Shrotri, Sachit Patil, Tejashree Pradhan, Neha Joshi and Shubhangi Gokhale add the perfect icing in the cake.
Zenda is truly one of the most realistic and interesting political dramas to have hit the Indian screen. It’s an eye-opener for the young kaaryakartas. It takes more than just courage to make something like Zenda. Take a bow Gupte!
i am very thankful to avdoot gupte. because its not only a film,it shows real face of politics, political parties and important thing is that what is the role,image and status of an ordinary karyakarta in their political parties.
from my point of view every ordinary karyakarta must watch this film and i wish that karyakarta will take lesson from that.
once again thanks avdoot and keep it up.
Very well said Rupesh. Zenda is more than a film. I think each and everyone in Maharashtra should watch the film to know the true face of these political parties and the condition and misery of the karyakartas.
Thanks for reading and for putting in your words.
Regards,
Keyur 🙂
I think Zenda started well but then it went no where. Its a movie made with good intetions but looks like not much efforts were out in for writing some story or creating drama. It is again so boring typical show of how politics is bad and hurts common man or common workers of party. There were some positive and some negative shades to the Rajesh Sarpoddars’s character which I see as confused portrayal. Basing story on real life characters is not going to make great movie. This movie cached in the rivalry between two politicians.
There are too much space given to love stories. That part where Kolhapur project is just waste of time and has no significance impact on the storyline of the movie. Also story about advertising company where director is showing how everybody want to go abroad is jusr worthless piece. This movie is about family politics and not about preaching that you should stay in India. There are many things like that which made no sense to me.
I see Raktcharitra as better movie which involves politics but has good story (even though it,s second part failed to live upto the expectations) thanZenda. I think director of Zenda should take Que from this and try to make good movie instead of just selling material. After long time Ramgopal Varma has made movie to watch.
Two thumbs down to Zenda and I hope next time some political movie does not disappoint me.
Thanks for reading and commenting sir.
i like zenda movie and santosh juvekar acting