Alternate Movies

If you ask me what is the story of party?. Then i have to say 10 small stories and still i wouldn't have told the story.Party is just a look at the minds of upper strata people, more specifically at the people who are involved in arts through a party.

A party is thrown to congratulate writer Divkar Barve(Manohar singh) for receiving the Government of India literary award.The story takes that as the base to look into various artist's personal and public life.

The movie is based on Mahesh Elkunchwar marathi drama 'Party'.Govind nihalani who usually presents two or three characters up close in his movies, this time presents a whole gamut of characters. When you watch a movie with so many characters, you tend to forget many of them as soon as the movie is over.But in party the screenplay is so well written that it is successful in making us remember most of them.The main reason being the fact that every character is unique and colorful, with its own worries and moral stand.

Akash Khurana & illa arun

The movie starts with various characters preparing for the party.Those scenes are also used to give a peek into the personal lives of those people who are going to attend the party. When the party starts and we get to see more peoples and the rest of the movie is just the party shot entirely in that house.No location change, no big action/romance sequence, it is just dialogues from then on.But even though it is all dialogues, the screenplay is as usual engaging in the nihalani style.Every small bit of scene, dialogue adding to the wholeness of the movie.

The characters are intellectuals who discuss so many things, in those small party conversations, various important questions are discussed. one of the important question being that the moral stand taken by an artist and an individual should be the same.simply preaching and practicing. In the discussion the avinash (Om puri) says.

Use the media as a weapon.If the artist is not politically committed his art is not releavent.

Again when people argue the importance of art as an entertainment and recreation, the doctor(Amrish puri) replies that

if an art form fails to reach the state of an epic. If it fails to show a new path. what use it is??

kk raina & soni razdan

As usual as the movie progress you get to know more about every character, on the surface they all look as people with social responsibilities who are very happy.But we come to know later that they are not so.Every character seems to have its need or it is in search of something. Vrindha the marxist is worried about getting married at her age. Rohini on not being loved, bharath on not being recognized etc.

Amrit is one character who you are made to admire, eventhough he does not come into the movie till the end.The whole characterisation of amrit is just built on the views expressed by different people in the party.

The movie comes to a nice climax,the party ends, exposing the shallow and hypocratic people.

Nihalani uses this same idea of Party as a stage to expose the hypocritical people in his other movie 'hazar chaurasi ki maa' and also this same theme was used in the movie page3.

Mahesh Elkunchwar

Mahesh Elkunchwar who acted in aakrosh has written the movie.You can even look at this movie as an extension of aakrosh as if (Bhaskar Kulkarni)nasrudeen shah the hero of aakrosh changed his mind regarding his fight for the tribals and became amrit of party who left everything to work for the tribals. Like aakrosh party also points at us for just talking and not taking any action against the injustice caused to the tribals.

Cast and credits
Party is one of those movies like trikal, mandi where u can see a whole array of indian alternate movie actor and actresses.

Vijaya mehta

Manohar Singh .... Divkar Barve
Deepa Sahi .... Sona Rane
Rohini Hattangadi .... Mohini Barve
Shafi Inamdar .... Ravi
Vijay Kashyap .... Guest
Akash Khurana .... Agashe
Vijaya Mehta .... Damyanti Rane
Pearl Padamsee .... Ruth
Amrish Puri .... Doctor
Om Puri .... Avinash
K.K. Raina .... Bharat
Soni Razdan .... Malvika (Vicky)
Mohan Bhandari .... Naren (Vicky's husband)
Naseeruddin Shah .... Amrit
Ila Arun .... Herself
Achyut Potdar .... Himself
Jayant Kripalani
Benjamin Gillani

All round good acting. Especially mahendra kapoor,Vijaya Mehta and rohini hattangadi. Rohini was just awesome in the movie.

Rohini Hattangadi

There are a few characters who come for a a few frames like Achyut Potdar who doesn't even get one close up shot. He is shown at the start of the party when barve arrives to the party.

Madan jain comes for a scene in the play in which shafi inamdhar is acting

Ravi jhankhal is one of the guy in the party.

Trivia:
#)The characters talk about various authors from Naipaul,salman rushdie,zeney and Federico García Lorca(govind later made his movie rukmavathi ki havelli based on his play) etc.

pearl padamse & vijay kashyap

#)Naipaul's names comes couple of times. Ruth when asked about naipaul's style comments that he is bitter. Amrish puri the doctor waiting in the reading room reads Naipaul's "The bend in the river".