Sleeper hit 'Munjya' brings to life Marathi folklore

Nonika SinghEach time naysayers lament how dull the entertainment business has become, there comes a sleeper hit which proves all the trade pundits wrong. If not too long ago it was Vikrant Massey's '12th Fail', which charmed critics and audiences alike, now it's 'Munjya'. Yet another horror.com from the stable of Maddock Films, perhaps few gave the film a thought or a chance. But with each week, its position at the box office is strengthening. Declared a bona fide superhit, it's even giving big-ticket 'Chandu Champion' a run for its money.Director Amar Kaushik, who set the ball of horror comedies rolling with the delightful 'Stree', happens to be the co-producer of 'Munjya'. He and Dinesh Vijan decided to back the film for they were taken in by the unusual premise of the Marathi folktale.'Story first' might be a rarity in Bollywood, but Kaushik, whose recent outing 'Bhediya' too touched magical numbers, observes, "Ultimately, the story has to be given the star treatment. New stories, new voices will always find audiences." Not that the director of 'Munjya', Aditya Sarpotdar, is a greenhorn. A fourth-generation filmmaker with a strong grounding in Marathi cinema, he was the ideal choice to take the Marathi folktale forward. Hailing from the same Konkani region in which the movie is set, it was the kind of story he grew up listening to. Since both the milieu and the tale are akin to 'home', the deeply personal as we have seen with 'Kantara' invariably becomes universal and resonates.Though the film opened to mixed reviews, for the makers, the audience's reaction is always the litmus test. Trade analyst Sumit Kadel explains why it found favour with viewers, "Post-Covid, audiences' tastes have changed dramatically and instead of serious dramas, they prefer entertaining stuff. 'Munjya' undeniably is a well-crafted entertainer." Sarpotdar nods, "A fair enough assessment; only the audience for serious cinema has not vanished, it has just moved to OTT for more highbrow content."As they are busy doing surveys and watching theatrical screenings with audiences, among the many takeaways are, "How more and more families are watching 'Munjya'." The thing about sleeper hits, says Kaushik, is that "audiences own it, promote it and thereafter it soars on sheer word-of-mouth publicity". Precisely why the film did even better in the second week.Whether over-publicity, a given in tent-pole movies, kills a film or not, it's not as if smaller films don't have a strategy in place. Take the timing of its release. June 7 was a date when no other movie was in competition. Plus, its intriguing trailer had already generated excitement among young audiences. In its making, they followed what Sarpotdar calls 'front-foot dynamics'. Why the film has worked is not as simplistic as being "rooted in Indian folk". Rather, the makers have transformed it into a fun fare with a contemporary feel and touch. Sarpotdar says, "There are jumpscares, laugh out loud moments, a colour palette that promises entertainment; all of which makes for a collective community experience and great theatrical outing." What other production houses and superstars read in 'Munjya's' success can't be foretold. But, yes, more money should go into making of films than stars' fees and expensive CGI effects or not; the story must land. In future, it certainly emboldens the creators of 'Munjya' to be more audacious/experimental in their choices. Yet, with three superhits in Kaushik's kitty, he still can't claim to know which way the box-office cookie will crumble. But, he admits, "As the first audience of our film, we are rather brutal, else audiences will be." While no one will ever know for sure what audiences want, Sarpotdar states, "What one can bet upon is that they don't want run-of-the-mill, recycled content."At the end of the day, post-mortems are easy and hindsight blesses us with greater vision. And, as they say, 'success has many fathers and failure is an orphan', until a new film takes us by surprise, we are back on the drawing board waiting for another sleeper hit to draw newer conclusions.