Eeb Allay Ooo!

The online limited premier of the movie Eeb Allay Ooo! comes at a time when the privileged citizens of India are witnessing the dreadful reality of the migrant workers who are traveling from various parts of the country to their home. Eeb Allay Ooo! is a satire about the political reality of our country. The movie written by Shubham and directed by Prateek Vats shows the absolute bizarreness in our system.

Anjani is the main protagonist. He has just arrived in Delhi to earn a living and he is currently living with his sister and brother in law. His brother in law, who works as a security guard in a theme park, manages to get him a government contract job and the job was to scare away the Monkeys that cause disturbances to those high profile people in the administration. And if you were thinking what kind of a title is this for a Hindi movie? Let me break the surprise for you. It is the sound these people make to scare the monkeys away. Anjani wasn’t really the perfect guy for the job and what we see is his struggle to hold on to that one job by applying various techniques.

The first thing that struck me real hard was the fact that there was an actual contract job in the capital of our country to scare away monkeys. The job requirements definitely will make you laugh out loud for sure, but slowly when the struggle starts to escalate, the fact that what you are laughing at is someone’s reality will start to affect you. Like I already said, Eeb Allay Ooo! is harshly teasing the majority who doesn’t even know the reality of the poor.  Anjani requests a citizen not to feed the monkeys as it causes problems to his job, but the man threatens him. In another heartbreaking moment in the movie we hear about the death of someone and the reason is really shocking. Where Prateek Vats and Shubham has succeeded is in mixing the satiric humor with a dark reality.

We see Anjani trying out various things to scare away the monkeys as he wasn’t great in making those voices. We see him placing photos of monkeys at public places to scare them and eventually he becomes a monkey-man by wearing a self-made costume who for a brief time becomes a social media sensation. But every solution he comes up with is turned down by the authorities. As if they won’t let him feel any sort of joy in a job that basically is one big humiliation package. Shubham etches out the points perfectly and Prateek Vats manages to portray this reality in a deeply affecting manner. One thing I would definitely want to know post watching the film is how they shot this movie that happens mostly in crowded and highly secured areas of Delhi. The cinematography is really good. It complements the narrative with the right kind of treatment. The brother in law of Anjani is struggling hard to cope with the added responsibility of maintaining a gun and to make us aware of his tension, the makers put him and the camera in an amusement park ride that can make us also feel dizzy.

 Shardul Bharadwaj plays the role of Anjani brilliantly. The cluelessness and helplessness of the man are portrayed wonderfully by the actor. When he becomes that monkey man and when he sort of loses it in the end, the actor’s performance is so good that we could feel what is going through the headspace of Anjani. Nutan Sinha was good as the pregnant sister of Anjani. I can’t find the name of the actor who played the role of the brother in law. He was also really good especially in that sequence towards the climax.

You might find yourself laughing at the bizarreness of the things that are happening on the screen for a while. But the way this movie ends showing the emotional state of Anjani is a disturbing one. Don’t miss this brilliant satire that exposes the real state of things in the world’s largest democracy.

Telegram Channel