City of Gold(2010)

23 April 2010hindiSocial

Storyline

A poor worker's family faces big challenges to live their lives and find livelihood after the strikes/ shutdowns of Mills in Mumbai.

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Plot

These days, there is barely anybody who hasn't visited the posh shopping complexes, nightclubs, relaxing bars, clubs and other such daily life target that leap up from corner to corner in the centre of Mumbai.

However, very small number of people know that buried bottomless beneath these dazzling edifices to consumerism lies the sinister, unclean and aching truth of numerous mill workers who some time ago worked in the cotton mills in this very same region. growing and laboring to the wail of the grate sirens each and every day, 7 days a week, these employees personified the accurate unrestrained passion and unfaltering force of the metropolis and played a key function in the progression of Mumbai as the current day trade center of India.

 

And then it unexpectedly was as if they not at all existed. Subsequent mill employees strike in the mid 80s, these mills started shutting down quickly and the mill workers puzzlingly vanished. What happened to them, and where did they go is one of the most disgraceful top secret that the metropolis of Mumbai will have to tolerate for generations, one that hitherto has at all times been spoken about in soft words.

City of Gold is the story of the mill workers who are forgotten; it not only investigates the indifference of these mill employees told through the tale of one such family, but is also a take no hostages account of the birth of the real underbelly of prepared offense in Mumbai.

The film City of Gold traces the birth of the politics of gluttony in Mumbai and exposes the unholy agreement between the triumvirate of big trade, the political organization and the trade union leaders who apparently were charged with caring the rights of the mill employees. In the 2 decades that followed, the total scenery of Central Mumbai was changed everlastingly. Land became the money of development, and this began the methodical disappearance of mills in Mumbai. In a matter of not many years, hundreds of thousands of employees lost their resources of living. Generation after generation they worked in the mills only so they knew no other work other than this. So, when mills closed they could not find any other job and thus they went back to their ancestral place. However, there were a few who chose to stay back and fight for their right but they soon understood that they would never win. Thus some took the drastic step of committing suicides because they could not face their miserable lives, and some others went into the criminal world.

Truth… as is said, is stranger than fiction. But the reality that the movie discloses is not merely stranger but sinister and dirtier than any mind could ever imagine. Produced by DAR Motion Pictures and from the Director of dark and practical movies like Vaastav Mr Mahesh Manjrekar, 'City of Gold' takes another journey down memory lane.... just that this time around the consequence is a much more heart pulling, soul rousing and appalling film about human greed and indifference.

The film doesn't offer any straight answer. Yet it explodes many a myth and raise many queries which only the course of time will give answers to..........

Stills(10)

Critic Reviews

B
BMDB Critic

City of Gold is a film directed by Mahesh Manjrekar and its casts are Karen Patel, Sachin Khedkar, Veena Jamkar, Seema Biswas etc. City Of Gold rotates around the Dhuri family who are very poor. This film is about mill workers and their struggle to survive when the mills started closing down some years back. In this movie the protagonist is compelled to take voluntary retirement from his job. He does this reluctantly and as it's after effect his family has to struggle a lot to survive. His wife (Seema Biswas) and their 3 children struggle to live. The film revolves around Laxmi chawl and mill workers and the people who live in Laxmi chawl. The movie revolves for 2 hours and 20 minutes weaving a story of slaughter, mourn and mistreatment as observed in the houses of more and more hopeless mill employees, who have been enforced out of their work because the proprietor - the Khetan family, fronted by a impetuous, supremacy starving son-in-law (Sameer Dharmadhikari) - desire to put up for sale the mill land to make malls and other daily life frills for the wealthy and the renowned families. You can well understand what is going to happen to the dependants on the mill. In this film the leader of the family waits for his gratuity money to be given by the Mill owners after his voluntary (forced) retirement and his 3 young sons are still struggling to earn some wealth in their own genuine and unlawful ways. Their only sister gets trapped in the love net of a local shop owner which puts them in very uncomfortable circumstances. Mahesh Manjereker brightly puts ahead the adversities tolerated by the family in his own exceptional way which also reminds the watcher of a few scenes seen in his earlier film "Vaastav"in which Sanjay Dutt played the main role. The scenes which are written around children and young people are excellent who are thrilled adequately to grasp the rifle and pull its trigger to murder anyone. The series connecting the adolescents killing for pleasure, foodstuff and vengeance are the most powerful and troubling sequences of the script which are even competent of swaying the youth watching the film. Jayant Pawar and Mahesh Manjrekar's screenplay is effective and is character-driven with the story. Direction too is very good and impressive. Other aspects such as DOP's job too are also good. This film is worth watching for adults because due to some brutal scenes this film is not meant for children. Though it is a good film, it may not earn much revenue because it lacks commercial values. You should watch this film if you want to know the truth of the mill workers of Bombay (Now Mumbai).

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