Nepali movie Acharya

When I first heard about the making of a movie on Bhajan Shiromani Bhakta Raj Acharya, I decided to watch this movie whenever it hits the screens. 'Acharya' that has already selected for Mumbai Movie Festival, despite some controversy regarding the identity of the movie, is something a moviegoer should not miss.

Directed by a versatile young Prashant Rasaily, I enjoyed the movie from the first scene to the last. It has most of, if not all, struggles the legendary singer Acharya faced in his life from his early life in Dumsipada, India to his peak of fame in Radio Nepal. The movie is never boring. All the credit goes to the fun-rich script. As it has many actors from theatre, the movie is superb in terms of acting. The lead actor Satya Raj Acharya gave a very beautiful and realistic portrayal of his father’s life.  

The movie succeeded to portray the time of the Bhajan Shiromani and it worked well, at least I think so. Many scenes are fun to watch despite realistic - people dancing for the first play of a radio, a hugging person who hugs the singer singing sentimental songs when he is completely drunk, a boy sitting on top of a tree to listen a singer’s performance and so on.

 A merchant asks why Acharya wants to sell his gold medal which he was awarded on winning the nation-wide singing competition organized by Radio Nepal. And he answers-“I like eating very much and I can’t digest this gold!” Som, aanch, dallai etc are fun to hear for the audiences who does not know the tone of language in Dooars, India.

Obviously, 'Acharya' is also not flawless. Firstly, the script is quite slow. Repetition of the Pashupatinath and other temples many times to portray the time of Acharya’s time may look quite impractical and unrealistic. Acharya missed the other contemporary singers and big political changes happened in Nepal at that time.

The legendary singer Acharya should be proud that a movie is made on him where many other such singers are ignored! But it feels bad that Acharya’s budget was about 20 million and it did not grossed that much. That means the producer, who financed a good Nepali movie, was in loss!

Not to say, Acharya is a very good movie with great technical inputs. Now it is not in any theatres across Nepal but you can watch the good movie anytime in your DVD!