Uddhab Poudel’s production and Dayaram Dahal’s direction, The Flash Back: Farkera Herda is a complete entertainer but with some loopholes. Shot in 35mm length (cinemascope), Gopi Krishna Movies should have screened this film on the projectors of its new outlets “Om”, “Nama” and “Shivaya” than screening it in its old theater Gopi, which seriously needs some serious renovations.
Nonetheless, considering the fact that it’s only Gopi hall that can occupy maximum people while the new three halls cannot have more than 250 people, it can be understood why Poudel chose Gopi. But it’s high time for this big production house to reconstruct its infrastructures as it doesn’t feel good to fall off while watching movies, and of course, you would not want to step on a pothole inside a cinema hall.
Coming back to the movie, The Flash Back: Farkera Herda is weak in its execution. Director Dahal has carelessly left many sequences incomplete, making Gopi Krishna’s hefty production costs go wasted. This is not to demoralize him but it’s high time that he understands what huge responsibilities a director has in any movie. The scriptwriter of the film also fails badly to deliver anything serious through his script. The dialogues often end incomplete.
A boy is the son of a multimillionaire. A girl is from a middle class background. They both come to know each other at a wedding. The wedding is of the boy’s cousin, who is coincidentally the best friend of the girl. Boy and girl befriend each other in course of time, but their parents pull in the line of rich and poor between their relationships and put them away from each other. Predictably, the boy doesn’t give up and is willing to take up everything he hates to get his girl back to him. Actions follow one after the other.
What is interesting during all this is a little bit of presentation, and most importantly, the expressions of Aryan Sigdel. Yes, it’s not a new story to look for, but it’s still entertaining in its own way. The soundtracks composed by Suresh Adhikary are the bonus in the film. For sure, one of the numbers sung by Udit Narayan Jha will remain on the music charts for sometime. Music is the best part of the film. Gopi Krishna Movies has carefully picked new kinds of compositions in this film. It’s no more ghintang-ghintang tunes in the voice of Dipak Limbu. Promising singers Manoj, Pramod Kharel and Rajesh Payal Rai have given a different feel to Nepali playback singing.
Raju Thapa, despite being one of the most sought-after cinematographers of Nepali silver screen, looks like a beginner in The Flash Back: Farkera Herda. If a cinematographer cannot even capture a moving bus neatly, it’s difficult to expect much from him. So many locations of Pokhara could have looked breathtaking if only Thapa would have researched more.
Action director Roshan Shrestha’s action scenes are worth appreciating as they don’t look repetitive, but the sound editing kills all the fun. The presentation of the movie would have been really appealing if the editing was taken care of well. Most of the time, one sequence of the film doesn’t go hand in hand. Because the sound editing is poor, you hardly get to hear the dialogues neatly. Director Dahal is again to be blamed for this.
Kabi Raj and Gahat Raj’s choreography is better than average. Costume designer Meera Rana’s creativity needs to be questioned as she keeps on repeating the same ghangra for the actress almost throughout the movie.
Aryan Sigdel is undoubtedly the show stealer. From Kismat to Mausam, Hifajat, Mero Euta Saathi Chha, and now The Flash Back: Farkera Herda, he has made sure he leaves no one disappointed. He surely is a tough competition for many in the film industry who self-proclaim that they are the number ones on the scene. He is almost perfect as an actor to play different characters.
Well, I would not want to be harsh and rude, but actress Yuna Uprety needs to take up some acting classes. Though she is now a better dancer her acting is all plastic. From the time of Parkhi Basen to Pahilo Pahilo Maya and now The Flash Back, there are no improvements. What is she doing in the film?, apart from snubbing and making some weird sounds in the film, is what I kept asking myself.
All in all, The Flash Back: Farkera Herda is still worth going for a film, if we sit to compare this film with other Nepali cinemas that are releasing in recent times. Yes, it’s better than Rekha Thapa’s “Hifaajat” and Dipak Shrestha’s “Pahilo Pahilo Maya.” Considering other Nepali films, this is a must-see. Go for it without keeping any Bollywood and Hollywood movies in your mind. If I have to rate, I would give this film 2.5 out of 5.