Tungrus - 12.36 minutes of wonder !

Don’t have time to watch a full-length feature or sit through multiple episodes of a web series? ASHOK’s FIVE reasons to watch “TUNGRUS” a short film that is only 12.36 minutes! Believe it or not, this film has won awards at 40 festivals worldwide including Hot Docs, BFI London Film Festival and now the Slam Dance festival that qualifies it for the Oscars! Rishi Chandna’s film is a tragi-comedy that shows a family dealing with an absurd situation when they adopt a chicken as a pet, and this leads to utter chaos in the household that is funny, ridiculous, irritating and sad. The film is on YouTube, but you can watch it on the official site at https://www.tungrus.com/watch/

1.       “Tungrus” stands out for the manner in which the drama is toned down and this is the signature style all through. Rishi lets the audience decide what emotion to dial up even as Mr Bharde narrates the story sitting in his Santa-Cruz apartment in that very matter-fact Bombay-Hindi slang. In the words of Chandna “the biggest challenge was to appeal to audiences beyond India and this is why he adopts this unique style.

2.       The visual style is also original with a predominant use of the handheld camera and as Chandna goes on to say he enjoyed “shooting in confined spaces” but with “balanced, well-tempered frames”. The entire film was shot in four days in a three-week period and hastened by the fact that the family wanted to vacate the apartment and move on.

3.       The film will have you chuckling at the subtle humour even as the father narrates the entire journey starting from when he brought the chicken home and the family adopted it as one of their pets along with the two cats they already had. At one point of time, Mr Bharde actually lowers his voice and says that the chicken, now a fully-grown rooster knows that they are talking about it!

4.       The narrative is held together beautifully with comments from the sons, wife and domestic help and all of them have their own perspective to add. The younger son is irritated with the rooster while the elder one is confused – what’s interesting is that they take it in their stride and are comfortable with the presence of this unique pet in the house.

5.       An interesting trivia is that the name Tungrus is what his wife calls Mr Bharde and is not the name of the rooster – He has a rural background and his attempts at running around the house trying to catch the rooster reminds his wife of the character by that name played by Naseeruddin Shah in Shyam Bengal’s Mandi!

Tungrus has been made by Rishi who originally hails from Kolkata and had been rejected three times by various film institutes. The visual under-stated rustic style is what makes for eminent viewing; the film will have you glued to your seats till the end(!) and leave you asking for more. I am going with a 4/5 for Tungrus. Don’t miss it.