Bakrid - An earnest and heartwarming effort!

Bharath Vijayakumar

Jagadesan Subu's Bakrid is a film about love. Unconditional love might be more precise. It is a film that portrays the bond that develops between a family and a camel. The best aspect of Bakrid is that it showcases this emotion without ever getting into the veg vs non-veg debate or being judgemental about the food habits of individuals. In fact there is a scene where a cop arrests few persons for transporting cows (legally/illegaly? ) while mutton is being prepared for his lunch. So Bakrid doesn't take sides nor propagates anything, atleast explicitly.

Vikranth probably comes up with his best performance to date. As the good intentioned and relatively naive youngster, he is very good in Bakrid and you really buy into his performance. A major portion of the film has him traversing through great distances and while this does not come through really convincingly on screen the weariness is very apparent on Vikranth's face. The supporting cast is about adequate. Few genuinely fit the mileu while few aren't great but there isn't much to complain either.

Imman's score is definitely catchy but is a little too overpowering at times. While the melodrama is appreciably under check on screen there are instances when the music tries to overcompensate for this.

Bakrid is a heartwarming film for many reasons. For starters the hero and his family might be struggling to make ends meet but they are showcased as a happy unit who keep finding happiness in the small aspects around them. The opening portions of the film with a strong flavour of earthiness sucks us right into it. The film probably needed something more to establish the bond between Vikranth's family and the camel. We definitely fall for the emotions on screen but less time is dedicated to establish the development of this bond. But you sort of understand the difficulty to shoot a film with a real animal .

The second half drags for a very brief period but the finale is neat. I really liked how that character of a lorry driver that begins like a caricature gets a nice closure. The sibling rivalry that looks like exploding at any moment gets a sweet little surprise. The screen is mostly filled with characters with an inherent goodness. You can find flaws in the film but there is a genuine sense of warmth and goodwill throughout. The flaws also seem like resulting from constraints and not from a lack of effort or intention.

Bottomline: A neat film which bowls us over with its earnestness.

Rating: 3/5