Boong Movie Review: Boon!

BoongDirector Lakshmipriya DeviActors Gugun Kipgen Bala HijamRating 4 starsThe shot in this filmrsquos main poster is straight from its opening sequence Thatrsquos the kid squinting one eye mdash pointing his fingers shaped like the shadow of a deer to the skyHersquos just stepped out of the back of a roadside stall with his lirsquol friend and a slingshotgulail This kid knocks down letters one after another with his perfect aim at his schoolrsquos nameplate at the entrance gate What remains are Homo Boys SchoolHe has no clue what that means Or the meaning of Madonnarsquos lyric Like A Virgin that he reads as prayer in the morning assemblyHersquos just desperate to get kicked out of his school and into an Englishmedium one soon This boy is Boong Gugun Kipgen So is the film named after himRight from the first to the final scene over 95 minutes flat mdash all you ever wanna do is pull Boongrsquos cheeks This cuddly warmth and humour sets the filmrsquos tone And it pretty much stays that way all through notwithstanding darkish undertonesBoong is from Manipur more specifically West Imphal The film is in Manipuri It might be the only time yoursquove heard the language in films or otherwiseWhich is perhaps not true for even other Asian tongues Korean etc mdash says much about how the North East in general feels distant within India itself I guess movies ought to socially connect when travel isnrsquot as easy an optionEven 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 clarityConsider the semiporous border between Manipur and Myanmar mdash where you can sense the nationalityrsquos changed given women children on the other side with thanakapainted cheeks common in Myanmar formerly BurmaOr for that matter the casual shot of Khongjom memorial that gets to you to search learn more about the 1891 AngloManipur warWhatrsquos a tiny movie about a boy called Boong going all the way to the IndoBurmese border for The boy does Hersquos in search of his father Thatrsquos what yoursquod call in movie language the McGuffin ie simply the driver of the plotAt its core Boongrsquos about relationships All good films are At one end is the bond between the kid and his sweet serene mother Bala Hijam singleparenting himAt the other the boy and his Manipurbornraised bestie Angom Sanamatum mdash who in a reversal of racism of sorts gets locally picked on for being the ldquooutsiderrdquo because he has ldquobig eyesrdquo and is Marwari by birth Your heart uniformly goes out to all threeFrankly itrsquos no big deal for film buffs to catch movies from Indian regions at film festivals that are niche by their very natureBoong is specially a boonblessing because itrsquos a Bollywood movie mdash emanating from the ecosystem that produces blockbusters seeking safety in their samenessItrsquos produced by Farhan Akhtar Ritesh Sidhwanirsquos Excel Entertainment et al The talented debut director Lakshmipriya Devi started off assisting Akhtar in Lakshya 2004From what I can instantly recall therersquove been a string of great films in a row lately by Excel mdash 120 Bahadur Superboys of Malegaon Madgaon Express mdash that didnrsquot receive the kinda theatrical footfalls they deservedBoong 2024premiegravere is a limited rerelease Itrsquos 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 1982I didnrsquot know of a BAFTA category called Best Childrenrsquos and Family Film mdash isnrsquot the former what most mainstream pix turn out to be anyway while the latter is a movie industryrsquos eternal aspiration Boong is evidently the best of both