In one of the key sequences of the film, a teacher puts up a question to his students asking, ‘How many seasons we witness throughout a year?’ A student quoting it from the books says ‘four’ and another learning it from the real life says ‘two’ – which beautifully explains the alarming theme of the film giving us the scary picture.
Pointing towards the accepted fact of ‘Climate Change’, KADVI HAWA (meaning Bitter Wind) actually brings up the issue focusing more upon the farmers and their pity state of life, lived under the burden of never-ending loans and insufficient income, dealing with the uneven weathers. And that’s certainly an appreciable way of tackling the subject, since the farmers remain the first ones to get hit by this destructive climate change, before it reaches the population living in the cities (in the terms of food-production).
Visually transporting the viewers to the remote areas where farmers are fighting for their survival, the cinematography makes you smell the dust and realize the conditions that lead to shocking suicides repeatedly reported since last many years (or decades). Beginning with a realistic sequence in the bank, the film has a twist in the story too bringing in some timely humour related with the loan recovery. But overall, the feel remains gloomy and the narration keeps raising many pertinent questions throughout focusing on their living conditions.
Continuing with projects made on all well-chosen insightful themes, writer-director Nila Madhab Panda once again scores in exploring the relationships within his characters much more than the actual theme of the film. For instance his most beautiful scenes are the ones where the old man is in conversation with his grand-daughter or where a young person is taking 5 kids to the school on his motorcycle tying them all with a long rope.
In all honesty, KADVI HAWA actually works as a message oriented, experimental film because of its fabulous camerawork, art-direction, natural sounds, occasional soothing background score, rustic ambience and outstanding performances by the entire cast more than anything else. Sanjai Mishra in the lead is scaringly shocking as the old blind man (played so convincingly) and so is Ranvir Shorey as the bank recovery agent already fed-up of the system. In fact you can just go for watching the film for these two men alone without reading any further. Tillottama Shome is impressive and Bhupesh Singh is fine in his few scenes, but the kids are all fabulous led by Ekta Sawant.
Having said that, the film surely raises questions, but they could have been raised more strongly inserting some indicative sequences pointing towards the ‘climate change or the kadvi hawa’ in particular. In the present format it works, but strictly as an off-beat, art-house cinema (as they call it) which will find it tough to bridge the gap reaching the general audience. Probably it would have been more impactful with a better edit or a much shorter length focusing on the core-issue.
As a personal opinion, the end-credits poem on ‘Climate Change’ written and recited by Gulzar, in reality turns out to be more horrifying and memorable than the entire film, which ideally should have been the last decisive blow for the viewer walking out of the theater in a deep thinking mode.
Anyhow, though KADVI HAWA tries to justify its title stressing more upon the state of farmers in the country, it still remains an alarming film for all, shamefully reminding the nation that the plight of farmers has actually gone worse since Bimal Roy's DO BIGHA ZAMIN released in 1953. In other words, its more than half a century but we haven’t progressed much in terms of taking care of our farmers, the ‘food-providers’ of our country quite shamefully.
So do watch KADVI HAWA feeling the shame & fear together as a brave experimental film conveying a scary truth (especially for Sanjai Mishra - one of the most talented, yet underrated actors of the present times, still waiting for his due from both the audience and the industry together)
Rating : 3 + 0.5 / 5 (with the additional 0.5 for Sanjai Mishra alone for his outstanding performance)
Note : This article also got featured in UC-News mobile app in Nov. 2017
Update: The film can now be seen at Zee5 movie portal for a subscription.
