‘Boong’ Review: Seeking Manipur and An Absentee Parent… With A Little Help From Madonna

I walked into the screening of “Boong” and after getting frisked at entry, was asked, “Is this a Chinese film?” Taken a little aback given the buzz the Indian film got after its BAFTA win for 'Best Children's & Family Film', I quickly retorted, “It’s Manipuri.” I should’ve been more offended, I imagine. But it wasn’t the place, or my place to do that.

I probably should’ve called it an Indian film, which it obviously is, and that’s understood. But to not acknowledge that it is Manipuri first, would have been a bigger miss, still. Because that would amount to erasure of identity, even at a subconscious level. 

That constant erasure of identity is a running theme in “Boong”, a film where a young boy seeks out his absentee father, who’s been missing/presumed dead for years.

Brojendra aka Boong (Gugun Kipgen) speaks in his native tongue, is proud of his local traditions, loves his ima [mother in Manipuri] Mandakini (played by Bala Hijam) and is inseparable from his best friend Raju (Sanamatum Angom).

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But there’s a gnawing emptiness within Boong. He tries to fill it by convincing his mother to enrol him in an English-medium school even though he struggles with the language, by finding little joys in playing truant, running amok and even making new friends.

But it is the constant barbs of that absentee father, never returning or responding to calls, that eats at him. The village headman declaring his father dead is the last straw. He just HAS TO know. He needs closure. All he knows is that his father has a Burmese teak business in neighboring Moreh, a town bordering Myanmar. With that and only a picture of his father to go by, he and his friend Raju figure out a way to know for sure.

You find yourself rooting the loudest for Mandakini. She’s a single mother, bringing up a son, as an independent woman in a village where patriarchy still holds some ground. She’s still rooted in tradition and hope, but is practical enough to pick her battles. She lets herself sob when she’s alone, but is sassy enough to give back as good as she gets. She never turns into a caricature or a cautionary tale. Her dignified resilience is one of the film’s core strengths.

That first shot of Boong using a catapult to knock off letters from his school’s name or getting the school’s assembly to recite Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” soon thereafter, are repeat-worthy moments, but it is when he is at his most vulnerable that Kipgen brings the character truly alive. It’s rare to find that kind of a talent in a child of that age and top marks to the casting directors for getting him on board and for director Lakshmipriya Devi for making Boong all the more relatable. And if you love Madonna, you’ll love how her music unites people across borders (well, sort of).

Vikram Kochhar and Sanamatum Angom as father and son are endearing enough to stand on their own as a support system to Mandakini and Boong but don’t overreach and that’s something that speaks to the restraint in their acting. Being called “outsiders” in a place you have called home for generations, underscores an “otherness” that doesn’t sit easy for most of us, but is something we need to be reminded of. 

The ensemble cast is fine, but it is the crisp editing by Shreyas Beltangdy that packs in a lot more in the 94-min. runtime that makes you feel you’re in a more expansive story than you realise.   

By the end of it, you’re not blown away by the experience. It never intends to. It’s a bittersweet, slice-of-life coming-of-age film that’s colored with deeper meaning that it doesn’t shove down your throat. Manipur is many things to many people at this point of time. And “Boong” is more than just a children’s film.