Boong
Director: Lakshmipriya Devi
Actors: Gugun Kipgen, Bala Hijam
Rating: 4 stars
The shot in this film’s main poster is straight from its opening sequence. That’s the kid, squinting one eye — pointing his fingers, shaped like the shadow of a deer, to the sky.
He’s just stepped out of the back of a roadside stall, with his li’l friend, and a slingshot/gulail. This kid knocks down letters, one after another, with his perfect aim, at his school’s nameplate at the entrance gate. What remains are: Homo Boys School.
He has no clue what that means. Or the meaning of Madonna’s lyric, Like A Virgin, that he reads as prayer in the morning assembly.
He’s just desperate to get kicked out of his school, and into an English-medium one, soon. This boy is Boong (Gugun Kipgen). So is the film named after him.
Right from the first to the final scene, over 95 minutes flat — all you ever wanna do is pull Boong’s cheeks! This cuddly warmth and humour sets the film’s tone. And it pretty much stays that way, all through, notwithstanding darkish undertones.
Boong is from Manipur; more specifically, West Imphal. The film is in Manipuri. It might be the only time you’ve heard the language; in films, or otherwise.
Which is perhaps not true for even other Asian tongues (Korean, etc) — says much about how the North East, in general, feels distant within India itself. I guess movies ought to socially connect, when travel isn’t as easy an option.
Even viewed from that perspective, Boong serves a fine purpose, when your eyes are alert enough to notice the landscape, and within it, curious landmarks, that make you google for greater clarity.
Consider the semi-porous border between Manipur and Myanmar — where you can sense the nationality’s changed, given women, children, on the other side, with thanaka-painted cheeks, common in Myanmar (formerly Burma).
Or, for that matter, the casual shot of Khongjom memorial that gets to you to search, learn more about the 1891 Anglo-Manipur war.
What’s a tiny movie about a boy called Boong going all the way to the Indo-Burmese border for? The boy does. He’s in search of his father. That’s what you’d call, in movie language, the McGuffin, i.e. simply the driver of the plot.
At its core, Boong’s about relationships. All good films are. At one end is the bond between the kid, and his sweet, serene mother (Bala Hijam), single-parenting him.
At the other, the boy and his Manipur-born/raised bestie (Angom Sanamatum) — who, in a reversal of racism of sorts, gets locally picked on for being the “outsider”, because he has “big eyes”, and is Marwari by birth. Your heart, uniformly, goes out to all three.
Frankly, it’s no big deal for film buffs to catch movies from Indian regions at film festivals, that are niche, by their very nature.
Boong is specially a boon/blessing, because it’s a Bollywood movie — emanating from the ecosystem that produces blockbusters, seeking safety in their sameness.
It’s produced by Farhan Akhtar, Ritesh Sidhwani’s Excel Entertainment, et al. The talented debut director, Lakshmipriya Devi, started off assisting Akhtar in Lakshya (2004).
From what I can instantly recall, there’ve been a string of great films in a row, lately, by Excel — 120 Bahadur, Superboys of Malegaon, Madgaon Express — that didn’t receive the kinda theatrical footfalls they deserved.
Boong (2024-première) is a limited re-release. It’s the first Indian film to win at BAFTA (British equivalent of the Oscars). Which is the perfect sort of critical acclaim that creates cultural urgency to catch a film. The only Indian I know of with the same honour is (the underrated actor) Rohini Hattangadi, for Gandhi (1982).
I didn’t know of a BAFTA category called Best Children’s and Family Film — isn’t the former what most mainstream pix turn out to be, anyway, while the latter is a movie industry’s eternal aspiration? Boong is, evidently, the best of both!
