Jeevan Bhar

The title of the Hindi short-film-Jeevan Bhar has the connotation of a long-lasting, enduring journey of life that every person should cherish and be grateful for and not take for granted as it can be unpredictable. The writer-director and actor Achyut Prashast Singh brings a philosophical, symbolic view on life and death.

The plot of the cinematic piece Jeevan Bhar or life long as it translates in English is about Sunil an unsuccessful filmmaker who has gone through a major setback and develops a set of ideologies that proves to be beneficial for him to come back stronger.

The movie takes the form of narration along with a series of long shots, mid shots, and closeup shots of natural vegetation, a train, platform. The writer-director Achyut Prashast wants the audience to utilise their visual as well as auditory learning skills to grasp various life lessons he wants them to learn and understand for the betterment of their future. The colour palette, and lighting has been kept natural to fit the subject matter of the creative piece. The set design, dialogues, language, costume, hair, and makeup elements are simple so that it does not suppress the key messaging of the film.

In terms of performance, Achyut Prashast Singh plays the role of the central character Sunil, a filmmaker who has recently faced a major setback in his career but he is determined to keep a brave face to combat all the hardships. The writer/director/actor heavily depends on his voice-over to convey the storyline only revealing his face to the audience close to the climax of Jeevan Bhar. This is a good cinematic technic to keep the audience hooked to the content. The young actor maintains the voice tone and modulations to ensure the continuity factor so that the movie stays with them for a while and they are forced to ponder upon the basic philosophies of life that we tend to ignore it mostly.

Jeevan Bhar reiterates that God has given us the gift of life and he only has the power to take it away also and we shouldn’t opt for the suicide option no matter what challenges one has to face. The short film advices its audience to enjoy and live life to the fullest till the time he/she has on this earth. The dramatic talks about the need to think about the families, friends, and loved ones who also get both physically and emotionally affected by the decision of ending one person’s life. This Hindi 28 sec movie also highlights how demanding the film industry can be, and what difficulties one has to go through to survive and ultimately taste success. The person has to be very strong, mentally determined to work with commitment, and hard work to become happy and creatively satisfied with what job one does. Jeevan Bhar teaches its audience to value life and support each other through tough and unpleasant situations so that people are not forced to take extreme step.

As an ardent viewer of short films, I want to appreciate the efforts of writer-director Achyut Prashast Singh for effectively communicating the key message of the film in a very short running time of the film. The only flaw in the creative piece is that the main character should have been given more screen time and not only utilise the voice to narrate so that the audience could relate to the movie even more.