'Tu, Ti Ani Fuji' is a must-see for anyone looking for love, unfiltered and unvarnished

Toh, Ti Ani Fuji | Director: Mohit Takalkar | Cast: Lalit Prabhakar, Mrinmayee Godbole | Marathi film | SonyLI

 If you’ve spent any time watching Indian movies, you will realise the romantic dramas that aim for intimacy usually end up as a showcase for the gym-perfected bodies of the lead actors or as scenes where the actors seem to have been forced together at gunpoint. Not so in the lovely Marathi film Toh, Ti Ani Fuji, which comes close on the heels of another recent Marathi film, Tighee. That covered somewhat similar themes—ageing parents, money worries, the search for companionship and the difficult business of being an adult, but through siblings rather than lovers.

The two leads have acted together before in 2017 in the popular film, Chi Va Chi Sau Ka, but here the dynamic is fresh and contemporary, with minimal appearances by parents. Prabhakar and Godbole’s characters meet as young people in the throes of love, choosing to live together, despite obvious differences that slowly reveal themselves: he is a rich manchild, who is trying to open a chain of body sculpting studios; she is a hardworking translator who has to take care of her ill mother. But they choose to live together in increasingly domestic disharmony till they don’t. The pair meet again seven years later in Tokyo under the shadow of Mount Fuji and reminisce about their relationship. Each remem­bers the past differently, with themselves as the victim. Scenes of intimacy, domestic violence, resultant trauma, and missed dates are stunningly done. This is a must-see for anyone looking for love, unfiltered and unvarnished.