Jal Review

One Line Review: A film that aptly presents and brings forth the human condition in extremely adverse situations.

Positive Points: Impressive character performances; depiction of water scarcity; accurate portrayal of the local socio-cultural and linguistic

Negative Points: The film slips in between from its focus; injustice done to the protagonist character in the conclusion of the film.

Plot: Bakka (Purab Kohli) who lives in a remote village in the Kutch desert of Gujarat, is a water diviner whose job is to find the presence of water below the ground. He along with his friend (Ravi Gossain) lives a happy life in the village. Though the villagers trust Bakka for his work, they are also equally skeptical about his claims. Kajri (Tannishtha Chatterjee) is a local girl who has fallen for Bakka while he likes Kesar (Kriti Kulhari) who is the daughter of the chief of the rival village.

One day, a young lady researcher from Europe, Kim (Saidah Jules) arrives there to conduct her research on the migratory Pink Flamingoes who in not time gets acquainted with the local villagers. She observes that the local flamingo chicks are being killed because of the increased salinity in the water. With the help of the villagers and government officials she gets the situation rectified and successfully provides water for the flamingoes.

During the whole mission to save the birds the local tourist guide (Yashpal Sharma) helps the researcher get acquainted with the place and the locals. On the other hand a resident of the rival village who hates Bakka and wants to bring harm to him (Mukul Dev)

Once the situation is taken care of, now the villagers want Bakka to make the researchers and the government officials find water for their village, which seems not only difficult, but highly impossible. On the other hand Bakka's enemy has ulterior motives to destroy his life.

Direction And Other Technical Aspects: Girish Malik has done an impressive job in directing this film in every way. The accurate portrayal of the cultural, lingo and the customs of the locals is a major positive point for the film. Also, the depiction of desperation and frustration of the villagers due to lack of water is outstanding.

Performances: Almost everyone in the film delivers an outstanding performance. However Purab Kohli has succeeded more in his portrayal of a local village man. He speaks the local lingo so aptly and convincingly that one may just forget that he doesn't really belong there.

On the other hand, every other character in the film has played his/her part in accordance with the local cultural settings that one can't help but appreciate their performance.

Music: Though music isn't much of a deal in the film, a song titled by the same name sung by Shubha Mudgal is soulful and compelling.

Final verdict: The movie is a depiction of the condition of people living in a village in the water scarce Kutch region which has been executed with great accuracy. The movie tries to show the raw human emotions in the face various situations such as grief, happiness, sorrow and despair.

The film is more like a story telling which engages the audiences and makes them feel the pain of the characters. However, at certain places the grip.