Ode to innocence

Killa brings alive the agonies of childhood with wistful nostalgia

In a significant moment in Killa, the protagonist, Chinmay Kale, who has moved from Pune to a small, picturesque town in the Konkan region sits down to write to his best friend back in the city. During the first few weeks in these new surroundings, the prepubescent boy had ardently filled a number of postcards with details and questions, but this time his pen struggles to find anything to say and he puts the unwritten letter away. Just like that, Chinmay outgrows a friend and one fragment of his childhood. Avinash Arun's debut Marathi film is equally an ode to innocence and the gradual loss of innocence that constitute growing up.

Even if it captures only a brief period in a boy's life, Killa could easily have been called Boyhood and it moves more deeply than Richard Linklater's film. Chinmay, a 12-year-old who has lost his father recently, must get accustomed to an unfamiliar coastal town after his mother is transferred on the job. While his big-city origins and impressive academic record quickly draw a motley crew of admirers in school, the inherently shy boy takes his time making connections.

Often in youth, your friends choose you rather than the other way around. So a diligent Chinmay (Archit Deodhar) finds himself hanging out with wild-child Bandya (Parth Bhalerao), the show-off Yuvraj (Gaurish Gawade), the butt of jokes Omkar (Atharva Upasni) and the tag-along Umesh (Swandand Raikar). The film also shows us the struggles of Chinmay's mother, (Amruta Subhash), who must raise a child alone and cope with casual corruption in her new office.

Rather than remembering the early years as 'carefree' or 'fun', as is commonly done in retrospect, Killa treats childhood with all the seriousness it deserves. Along with the mischief and teasing, it shows us the awe, fear of abandonment, indignation and unfathomable aloneness in a child. While these feelings are portrayed larger than life, as indeed they seem at that age, it never feels over-the-top. Director Arun and screenwriters Tushar Paranjape and Upendra Sidhye create an ambient narrative, free of affectation. Wisdom is in the film's lush silences.

Killa also comes with a very palatable kind of nostalgia. The school here is not a harmless space but a vast, intimidating one. It shows us how unsettling classroom chaos can be and how easily bonds are formed just by sharing a bench. Whenever one begins to think Chinmay is too well-behaved, he betrays sparks of irreverence from an impending adolescence.

Young Deodhar is charming as the protagonist. Viewers will be prone to attaching their memories to Chinmay's experiences. This makes the film heavy but not tediously so. The responsibility of comic relief falls almost entirely on class buffoon Bandya, played fluently by Bhalerao. Subhash astounds in moments of self-doubt as well as pride over her son's small accomplishments. Mention must also be made of Umesh Jagtap, who plays the inebriated fisherman with whom Chinmay strikes an unlikely friendship.

Arun's camera objectifies the Konkan coast but that is welcome since this is somewhat unseen territory. The calming effect of the sea or the melancholy beauty of Vijaydurg fort is documented as effectively as rural Iranian landscapes in Abbas Kiarostami's Koker trilogy. Realities, as the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke noted, are slow and indescribably detailed. Unhurried yet penetrating, Arun's Killa stays true to that.