‘Sangeet Manapmaan’ review: This period musical could have been an album

Sangeet Manapmaan is a once-upon-a-time tale, set in an unspecified era of peasants and royals, swordplay and power play. Subodh Bhave’s Marathi movie is about a shepherd who aspires to be a soldier, the wealthy woman who rejects him and her scheming suitor.

Grandly named characters inhabit a world of lofty values and petty arguments. Dhairyadhar (Subodh Bhave) impresses Sangrampur’s military commander Kakasaheb (Shailesh Datar) with his valour and honesty. Kakasaheb recruits Dhairyadhar into Sangrampur’s army, and none too soon – the neighbouring kingdom’s ruler Dhiren (Upendra Limaye) is aching for battle.

Kakasaheb is so taken with Dhairyadhar that he wants him for a son-in-law. Kakasaheb’s daughter Bhamini (Vaidehi Parashurami) is incensed at being promised to a man whom she not only hasn’t seen but is also much poorer than her. A misunderstanding keeps Dhairyadhar and Bhamini apart, exacerbated by Bhamini’s cunning friend Chandravilas (Sumeet Raghvan), who wants her for himself.

The film’s title points to its origins as a stage musical. Shirish Gopal Deshpande and Urja Deshpande have based their screenplay on Krushnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar’s popular 1911 play of the same name. Music supports, propels and rescues the movie version, which comes off as dated as the plot itself.

Sangeet Manapmaan resembles period dramas from several decades ago, in which...

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