Toh Ti Ani Fuji

This Marathi language feature involves a pair of former lovers accidentally bumping into each other in Tokyo years after their painful parting. The meeting between Toh (He, Lalit Prabhakar) and Ti (She, Mrinmayee Godbole) causes facades to be peeled off, re-opening old wounds: can these two forgive each other, and is forgetting on the cards? Directed by Mohit Takalkar and written by Irawati Karnik, Toh Ti Ani Fuji is the kind of grown-up relationship drama which feels fresh, contemporary and urgent: as Toh and Ti are drawn to each other, trying to see how they fit in, we see just how complex the thing between two people can be, where ‘extreme hatred and extreme love’, as one of the two puts it, can appear to be the two sides of the same coin.

In a mask, she looks like everyone else. It’s not her city or country, but it’s her home now. The Pune native goes about her daily routine in Tokyo: walking, thinking, dodging other feet, commuting to work on the metro. It’s muscle memory; you can tell she’s been here for a while. The only sounds she hears are of footsteps shuffling, metal doors opening, vehicles moving. Voices stay within; speaking is impolite. And then she sees him, after 7 years, looking perplexed on a platform. In a mask, he looks like the man she loved. They meet at a famous intersection. When they hug, it’s like the moment activates human motion; hundreds of walkers cross the congested street the second their bodies touch. They spend the next few days enjoying the familiarity of an ex-partner in a foreign environment. Everything is new and old at once. She shows him the place; they eat, stroll, run, giggle, puncture the silences, get drunk together. It’s everyone’s Before-Sunset fantasy. But it escalates quickly. When they kiss, it’s like the moment activates faster human motion; a speeding train darts behind them the second their lips meet.