2018 has been a splendid year for Marathi cinema! The great cinema was made last year too, but the audiences didn’t quite respond towards it! This year the audiences have wholeheartedly loved Marathi cinema & the box-office has boomed tremendously especially in the second half of 2018! So here’s our list of top 10 Marathi films of the year! Films that are high on quality as well have clicked with the audiences!

10. Mumbai Pune Mumbai 3
Our Rating: 3.5/5

The third part of the franchise mixed up the best of the previous two films very skillfully! It had the lighthearted fun tone of the first film & the serious dramatic undertone from the second film. Swapnil Joshi & Mukta Barve both had flawless chemistry as always!

Read our full review here

9. Redu
Our Rating: 3.5/5

Editor turned director Sagar Vanjari re-introduced the sweetness of ‘Malvani’ language & culture to the audiences, throughout enthralling us by the simplicity of this film. The film ended on such an unexpected yet beautiful point that it redefined the whole film & made us think after the film for a long time!

8. Aapla Manus
Our Rating: 4/5

The second Satish Rajwade film in our list after MPM 3! Nana Patekar’s surprise double role, the performances of the rest of the solid cast that included Sumit Raghavan & Irawati Harshe & the overall strength of the story made ‘Aapla Manus’ one of the most exciting films of the year! The idea of a suspense thriller was pushed to its limits rewarding the audiences in the end with an altogether unexpected twist.

Read our full review here

7. Pimpal
Our Rating: 4/5

Gajendra Ahire’s most simplistically beautiful film of all time! Dilip Prabhawalkar’s heartfelt performance connects us with the film almost instantly & we feel like we know this old man in real life. The film was a beautiful love letter to loneliness & how old age makes any stiff man become tender about his memories & the people who were most dear to him!

Read our full review here

6. Nude
Our Rating: 4/5

Ravi Jadhav’s magnum opus! Every frame of this film was like a painting! Probably the most visually stunning film made in Marathi ever! At the same time the film dealt with a very deep subject that dealt with the tragedy of a single uneducated mother fighting against the world. ‘Nude’ also had a philosophical subtext regarding ‘art’ & how it’s perceived by society.

Read our full review here

5. Maska
Our Rating: 4.5/5

Priyadarshan Jadhav’s debut film as a director was the most unexpectedly entertaining film of the year! Never have we ever seen a better ‘genre’ comedy in Marathi cinema. The performances of the cast that included Aniket Vishwasrao, Shashank Shende, Prarthana Behere, Pranav Raorane & Chinmay Mandlekar were equally brilliant & brought life into the quirky fun script! In years to come ‘Maska’ is destined to be an iconic Marathi film that will be enjoyed by the audiences repeatedly!

Read our full review here

4. Gulabjaam
Our Rating: 4.5/5

Sachin Kundalkar’s passion for food was seen in ‘Vazandar’ before but in ‘Gulabjaam’ he glamorized Maharashtrian food like never before! But beyond that the film’s strength was it’s emotional core & the chemistry between the characters played by Sonali Kulkarni & Siddharth Chandekar. ‘Gulabjaam’ had the right blend of Kundalkar’s avant-garde sensibilities & his love for ‘youthful’ mainstream cinema!

Read our full review here

3. Lathe Joshi
Our Rating: 4.5/5

A subtle masterpiece by debutant director Mangesh Joshi. A film that demands patience from the audiences & in return it rewards them with a completely original cinematic experience. A film that garnered praise all around the world at different festivals but didn’t quite receive a similar response upon its theatrical release here. Hopefully ,the film will pass the test of time & slowly the audiences would re-discover it some way.

Read our full review here

2. Chumbak
Our Rating: 5/5

A film presented by super star Akshay Kumar! He was so much in love with the film after watching it that that he wanted to be associated with it without expecting any returns! The film took the children film genre to an altogether new level in Marathi cinema. Popular lyricist & singer Swanand Kirkire gave a performance of a lifetime in this film & was equally supported by the rest of the teenage cast.

Read our full review here

1. Naal
Our Rating: 5/5

The Nagraj Manjule magic again worked! This time as producer & actor! However ,the real star of the film was the little kid Shrinivas Pokhale who gave the performance of the year! The audiences were throughout at the edge of the seat while watching this emotional journey of a little boy who discovers the meaning of the motherhood through it. Director Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti explored the larger meaning of birth & death too in a very organic & non-pretentious yet artistic way!

Read our full review here

Honourable Mentions:
Farzand – 3.5/5
Amhi Doghi – 3.5/5
Take Care Good Night – 3/5
Ani..Dr. Kashinath Ghanekar – 3/5
Mulshi Pattern – 3/5
Cycle – 3/5
Mantra – 3/5
Youngraad – 3/5

The post Top 10 Marathi Films of 2018 appeared first on MarathiStars.

• Review : Pimpal (2018)
• Producer : Supriya Sunil Phadtare, Ashwini Sidwani, Arpan Bhukhanwala and Deepak Kumar Bhagat
• Director : Gajendra Ahire
• Screenplay : Gajendra Ahire
• Star Cast : Dilip Prabhawalkar, Priya Bapat, Alok Rajwade, Sakhi Gokhale & Kishore Kadam
• Review by : Abhay Salvi

Rating : 4/5

Pimpal Review (Marathi Movie):

Gajendra Ahire directorial ‘Pimpal’ is one of his rare movies that understands the power of minimalism & inhibits it in & out. Running around one & a half hours, ‘Pimpal’ has a very specific world & an organic structure that doesn’t follow any norms of conventional storytelling usually seen in our films.

Dilip Prabhawalkar plays an old retired man living alone with some assistance from his cook (Kishore Kadam) & his doctor (Priya Bapat). The actual people in his life are probably only these two! But in a virtual world, he is connected to his two sons & their family including grandsons & a granddaughter almost on daily basis. His sons, daughters-in-law & grandchildren all of them seem genuinely interested in the old man through their regular video chats.

There are no distinct caricaturish features assigned to this old man, which makes him more believable! Even Priya Bapat’s character isn’t created like a make-believe movie character, to some extent we feel to be at distant from her real self, which again works for the film. At first, we are allowed to wonder what the film is actually about! Slowly we get into the actual soul of the film.

That soul too is minimalistic just as the approach to the overall making of the film. We have many times heard that it’s depressing for a single old person to survive once he/she loses their life partner. This film goes deep into this feeling, it’s not depressing, neither is it pleasant. It’s a bit of both! It’s a lot like being in love! A bittersweet feeling as they call it! This loneliness is more on the sub-conscious level than in physicality. How can an old man who has a loving family eagerly waiting for his arrival be lonely? One could ask this question? That’s the point in physicality (which also includes the virtual world) he isn’t alone, but in his conscience, he misses the life he had, he misses his wife, he regrets how he couldn’t live his life at it’s fullest when she was with him!

The film doesn’t really have a strategically constructed ‘story’. It just dwells on certain real human feelings & probably the most peacefully lonesome phase in a person’s life. It uses the medium of cinema in actualizing this lonesome atmosphere & we can experience the same through our senses in a cinema hall. Provided we open up our senses & look beyond a ‘story’ & a conventional idea of ‘entertainment’.

This is Dilip Prabhawalkar’s finest performance in a long long time! You couldn’t have anyone else in his part. He is tailor-made for the role & for the film. Priya Bapat too explores a new side of her in the film! Kishore Kadam gels well in the film too. Gajendra Ahire is a passionate Marathi filmmaker who has a habit of disregarding the technical aspects of the medium many times. But here since the film had a minimalist need in every way he has managed to make the film just about perfect in every way. His biggest achievement here is that he has captured the feeling of loneliness through image, sound & the overall atmosphere he creates in the film!

In a way, it works cathartically for those who regret their life decisions & wish they could have given more time to themselves & their loved ones.

Overall:

‘Pimpal’ is a must watch for those who love thought provoking simplistic films! While there are too many options in the theatres currently (including Marathi) ‘Pimpal’ is a clear stand out amongst all of them as it can give some peace of mind to the audiences in the midst of all chaos we are in right now.

The post Pimpal Review: A Cathartic Love Letter to Loneliness appeared first on MarathiStars.

• Movie : Pimpal (2018) | पिंपळ
• Producer : Supriya Sunil Phadtare, Ashwini Sidwani, Arpan Bhukhanwala and Deepak Kumar Bhagat
• Director : Gajendra Ahire
• Studio :
• Star Cast :
  • Dilip Prabhavalkar
  • Priya Bapat
  • Kishor Kadam
  • Vrinda Gajendra
  • Alok Rajwade
  • Sakhi Gokhale
• Story : Chintamani
• Screenplay : Gajendra Ahire
• Music and Background Music : Narendra Bhide
• Cinematography (DOP) : Krishna Kumar Soren
• Editor : Kutub Inamdar
• Art Director : Santosh Suresh Phutane
• Executive Producer : Rohan Shah, Amar Singh and Abhijeet Yadav
• Trailer : Kutub Inamdar and Vaibhav Dabhade
• Promo Sound Design : Roshan K Sharma
• Post Production Design : Amar Singh
• Digital Marketing : Loki’s Studio
• Genre : Drama
• Release Date : 08th June 2018

Synopsis : A retired widower, Arvind, lives all by himself in Pune and is asked by his children to move to the US to live with them. As he begins to pack, he comes across various things that bring back old memories.

Pimpal Marathi Movie Poster/Photos :

Pimpal Marathi Movie Teaser/Trailer :

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