Gamak Ghar aka Village Home [dir. Achal Mishra]

Although scripted and acted, Achal Mishra's directorial debut Gamak Ghar (GG) aka Village Home is closer to an anthropological documentary than a fiction feature. The titular house located in rural Bihar is home to a large extended family we first meet in the year 1998. In this segment, presented in a 4:3 frame, we see the joint family getting together for a festive occasion in the summer (a baby's naming ceremony). The children revel in their outdoorsy games, men sit at cards or run errands, while the ladies share in the domestic activities. In their casual conversations (in the Maithili tongue) and interactions, we sense an ease that comes with familiarity and affection.

Cut to around a decade later (2010), the screen space expands to 16:9. It is autumn and the house is a little emptier now. The family patriarch is long gone, and several of the second generation, both in this house and from around the neighborhood, are settled in other places. Even the mother is convinced to shuttle between her children's families than manage the village home by herself. The grandkids are glued to their electronic gadgets, and prefer Maggi to the more rustic snacks. Conversations are less given to humor or frivolity, and small disputes arise. But there is still an attachment, at least with the adults, to their original home. They look with fondness (and some regret) at photographic or written records and reminiscence about the past.

Skip approximately another decade to 2019 with an even wider frame of 2.35:1. In a wintry haze, the house lies decrepit and forgotten, save for a wizened caretaker. It appears that the family no longer convenes here. Like some aged relative abandoned in a pilgrimage location or a once loved dog left behind while shifting, it waits forlorn for signs of its family's return. There is a moment of redemption towards the end when we see it undergoing renovation with the purpose of returning it to its former glories. But who knows what it will all come to?

On paper, GG sounds like a dry preachy exercise about the gradual erosion of family values in the modern age. But the very understated manner in which Mishra (as writer, editor, producer and director) has executed his script, it comes across as very real. The conversations are natural conversations, not purposeful dialog - on several occasions the maker chooses not to display subtitles because what is actually said is not important. While always perfectly framed, the camera sits non-ostentatiously, like an eavesdropper. You could be fooled into thinking this was a documentary put together from actual footage capturing the interactions of a real family.

Featuring several long takes with a stationary camera, GG is not the most kinetic of films. But once you align with its rhythms, it is a wonderful time capsule and a warm study of a universal social structure defined within a specific cultural milieu. I was wholly engrossed.