'Frame': This Marathi film drama is a moving look into the lives of news photographers
Frame | Director: Vikram Patwardhan | Cast: Nagraj Manjule,Amey Wagh | Marathi | Zee5
Ever since Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 masterpiece Blow-Up, filmmakers have been obsessed with photography, the art of framing closest to theirs. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro was the last time two photographers tried to do their jobs on screen and paid for it with their freedom. Vikram Patwardhan’s Marathi film Frame tries to cover the same ground, without, unfortunately the 1983 film’s iconic humour.
Frame pits a cynical, senior photographer Chandu Pansare (Nagraj Manjule) against Sidharth Deshmukh (Amey Wagh), a neophyte. The duo is covering an earthquake’s aftermath. “Wherever you go, take the photograph first,” says Pansare. Whether it is a suicide, accident, earthquake or fire, everything is secondary to the photo. Sidharth, young and idealistic, believes that humanity comes before anything else. From protests to drinking bouts, from the thrill of seeing one’s photo on Page 1 to the freeze when confronted with mortality, Frame captures a news photographer’s life in graphic detail. The camera moves restlessly, like the photographers, on the move, chasing that one perfect frame that validates them, that completes them.