Prakash Jha has always aced depicting rustic flavour truthfully as a director or actor, but he outdoes himself as Matto Pal in this film. For the daily wage construction labourer, his bicycle is everything. For 20 years, he has ridden it to the city for work every day and struggles to keep it in working condition. With an ailing wife and two young daughters, Neeraj and Limka, to provide for, Matto cannot afford to buy a new bicycle and repairs his current on his own to save money. His world comes crashing when a tractor runs his bicycle over, damaging it beyond repair. What it entails for him, how he manages to buy a new cycle and whether it brings him better days form the rest of the narrative. The film is just like village life — slow-paced, simple and uneventful. This saikil saga may not be of much consequence, but, it holds layers of harsh realities that the poor rural population must face — shoddy school system, lack of clean water, electricity and medical facilities, and how politicians take advantage of villagers’ naivete. The bicycle symbolises the cyclical poverty that Matto is stuck in. M Gani’s direction is good, but the movie seems to stretch unnecessarily, and not much happens. The picturisation is on point, whether long shots of fields or narrow lanes of a hamlet or the overcrowded hospital. Prakash Jha and all the other actors get the twang and dialect perfectly but it also becomes tough to follow the dialogue and loses its charm after a point. Prakash’s performance is the best part of the movie. Whether as a doting and helpless father, a pushover embarrassed of being weak, a disappointed man stuck in the loop of poverty and yet an optimist, he will win your heart. Aarohi Sharma as Matto’s elder daughter, Neeraj, Dimpy Mishra as his friend and a cycle repair shopowner lend able support and are convincing in their parts. With no drastic conflict or turning point in the story, watch this one for Prakash Jha’s raw, honest and outstanding performance that will hook you and the realism of village life.Read more

When we first see Matto, he is crouching by the side of a field, fixing his battered old bicycle. This is a leitmotif that we see repeated through the film: Matto’s beloved ‘saikil’ is as much a member of his family, as his wife and two daughters. Just like the tired humans on their ‘charpais’, the ‘saikil’ leans against a wall of their little home, resting after its labours, getting ready to ferry the man of the house to his jobs as a daily wager. This relationship between man and machine is movingly portrayed in M Gani’s slice-of-rural-life, which coasts on authentic performances, and the rare ability to catch the rhythm of life in a village. Both elements separate this film from so many others which impose artifice in the plotting and execution. The film observes its characters going about their business, inviting us to be participants, and we are happy to ride along, like Matto does. Some of it will inevitably remind you of Vittorio de Sica’s classic ‘Bicycle Thieves’, but it turns out the story is inspired by a similar event in the director’s father’s life. The film flattens in a few places, but on the whole manages to be the sharp social commentary it sets out to be. The lack of good medical care, the ‘kachchi sadaks’, the local netas who take advantage of naive idealists like Matto, the lawlessness, and soul-sucking poverty, is all laid bare. It leaves us with tough questions. Has life in India’s villages changed substantially over these 75 years? How does a man whose livelihood depends upon the meagre daily wages he earns (the day he doesn’t, the family eats dry rotis with chutney) buy himself a new cycle? Doesn’t Matto, and people like him, deserve better? And, the most stinging of them all: will things ever change? The troubles which beset Matto and his family (Chowdhury as his wife, and Sharma and Roy as the daughters, are all effective) have weight. Theirs is a tightly-knit unit, and they are all equally attached to the ‘saikil’, which is pivotal to their home economy. And Jha is the heart of the film, transforming into Matto with great ease and naturalness. With his shirt, ringed with old sweat-marks and fresh sweat, his back unbent despite hard physical labour, his face lined and baked under the sun, he not only looks the part, but becomes the part. In his past performances, he has been a strong supporting act; in this one, as the main protagonist, you can see that he enjoys filling the screen. Read more