In Toh Ti Ani Fuji, former lovers find that the old saw about distance and the heart still cuts deep. Mohit Takalkar’s Marathi film, written by Irawati Karnik and out on Sony LIV, explores a relationship held together by passion and ripped apart by pressure.
A man and a woman – let’s call them Toh (He) and Ti (She) since that’s what the movie does – meet again seven years after they parted. Despite their tumultuous history, their chemistry is intact.
Toh (Lalit Prabhakar) runs into Ti (Mrinmayee Godbole) in Tokyo, where she now lives with her son who does have a name, Kartikeya (Kabir Jueelee Deven). Back home, Toh and Ti were so invested in each other that they ignored the warning signs and shut out the alarm bells.
Might their Tokyo story have a happier outcome? Far away from their roots, amidst gorgeous locales and calming Japanese elders, they look back on what they lost.
Toh Ti Ani Fuji is the kind of grown-up, intimate and sexually frank drama that’s rarely available in Marathi cinema. Featuring stupendous performances by the leads and several moments of piercing honesty, the movie isn’t afraid to confront the darker aspects of the Toh-Ti dynamic.
His charming boyishness conceals poor self-esteem. Her steadying maturity hides guilt. Both wear masks until they cannot anymore.
Talalkar has also edited the movie, which moves back and forth in time. The scenes in Japan shot by John Donica have a quiet and stately quality, while the previous sequences shot by Rahul Chauhan crackle with the inchoate energies of two people testing each other’s limits.
Nasty things are said and done. Hate and love are folded into one another.
A meltdown that is played out in harrowing detail for 13-odd minutes is many things at once – an acting masterclass in which Lalit Prabhakar and Mrinmayee Godbole reveal astounding layers of vulnerability; an uncomfortable look at ardour dying in real time; Mohit Takalkar’s skill with realising the big ideas in Irawati Karnik’s screenplay.
This low in the romance is also a high for the film. Coming well into the narrative, the display of despair manages to overshadow whatever follows. Having fully complicated the relationship by this point, the movie creates complications for itself too.
A balance is sought between then and now, which is not only uneven but also a bit of a deception. What lingers at the end of 135 minutes is a relationship spiced with rancour.
Like so many films about turbulent romances, Toh Ti Ani Fuji is the most vivid, and the most memorable, in its most downbeat moments. The drama gives a solid, real sense of the minor tensions and major upheavals between two people very much in love but also shackled by insecurity.
Lalit Prabhakar and Mrinmayee Godbole unerringly hit their mark each time, portraying the agony of ecstasy of being together as well as the relief that it’s over. Despite plumbing the depths of emotion, Toh Ti Ani Fuji still feels incomplete, but there’s a fullness to the performances that’s a marvel unto itself.
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