“When the goddess of wealth arrives she brings trouble,” runs an appropriate epigram quote here. Set in a small, bleak farming village in Maharashtra state in India, 1000 Rupee Note begins inauspiciously enough, focusing on the mundane mud-hut existence of Budhi (Usha Naik), an aging, poverty-stricken spinster who nevertheless enjoys simple pleasures like drinking tea in the afternoon and haggling for “fluffy” bread. Her fortunes change, however, when her son commits suicide after being refused a government subsidy to keep his farming livelihood going. When the local governor comes to the village to distribute food and cash (illegally, of course) to the villagers in exchange for votes in the next election, Budhi's friend, Sudama (Sandeep Pathak), notifies the governor that Budhi has lost her son to suicide. The governor takes pity on her and gives her the astronomical sum of five 1000 rupee notes. Budhi and Sudama take a bus into the nearest market town only to find out that the money is a curse: nobody can make change for her 1000 rupee notes, and accusations of holding Pakistani-made counterfeit bills land them in jail. Director Shrihari Sathe skillfully leads viewers into a vast underworld of civic corruption—from bent local politicians and police to crooked journalists—in this excellent “money is the root of all evil” tale. Highly recommended. (M. Sandlin)
1000 Rupee Note
Kino Lorber, 89 min., in Marathi w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: $29.99 Volume 32, Issue 2
1000 Rupee Note
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