Astu is a wonderful and lovely story of an old man who starts loosing his memory and self recognition due to Alzheimer's disease. The film is an intense and realistic portrayal of a subject as touchy and complex as transition of life and relations on the non-constant axis of time. I highly admire the story, the direction, and of course the talented cast of the movie, the way it has been carefully dealt with, an extremely touching and beautiful story which touches the right chords of the heart. I found the film immensely profound in conveying the unspoken words and feelings of an aging scholar of ancient Indian literature who lived a simple life with a pure heart merged with pure bliss of God and humanity. The story of a man and his family, how they deal with his fading memory and new tantrums and senile effects of aging. A mesmerizing transformation of an adult old man of wisdom, knowledge and truth into a carefree, blissful child who wants to do and experience simple things in life and communicates and perceives the relations and the world with primitive non-complex behavior. Musically, the film has been weaved around a contiguous thread of ancient Indian poetry in Sanskrit written by learned sages from India that recapitulates the known and unknown realms of existence, meaning of life, and human's quest to understand the divine truth. Dr. Mohan Agashe who plays the lead role of an old gentleman Dr. Shashtri, never fails to titillate the audience with his superb acting skills and immensely profound non verbal and nonchalant portrayal of emotions of a once normal man slowly descending into dementia. I can not count how many times I had goose flesh or tears rolling over my cheeks watching and feeling the simplistic moments throughout the movie, moments stirring the deeper and most innocent layers of our soul. Iravati Harshe who plays a key role of the elder daughter of Dr. Shashtri, is a lovely actress, I watched her movie first time, and I would say that she is a talented actress. Milind Soman played an interesting character of the son-in-law and his portrayal of the character brings a pleasant touch to this interesting story. The film is directed by the talented duo of Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukhtankar. I would rate this movie as a 'Must Watch' movie and appeal everyone to boost the morale and support the team who tirelessly put their efforts, blood and sweat in creating such an amazing film, and help it take to Oscars. I believe such are the movies from India that deserve to have a standing ovation in Oscar Award, not the superfluous melodramatic masala movies driven by political and financial equations.
Review of Astu - So Be It
