The series named ‘Murabba’ is directed by D.K.Bains and produced under Ambarsariye Productions and Dheeraj Kumar Karan Sandhu. It is written by Preet Mahla and Loveena Bagga. The D.O.P is K Sunil and the background music is composed by Manpal Singh.
The cast includes Yaad Grewal, Saniya Pannu, Mahabir Bhullar, Preet Bathh, Dheeraj Kumar, Ronak Joshi, Shamsher Dhillon, Latika Arora, D.S. Chahal, Pritpal Pali, Swaran Singh, Armaanpreet Singh Mann, Mr. Sonu, Sukhwinder Virk, Narain Malhi, Amandeep Gill, Guri aman and Malkeet Shergill.
Story:
The story of ‘Murabba’ is about a 25 acre land chunk that everyone wants to own. This 25 acre land is called ‘Murabba’, hence the name. The storyline is very simple, what most of the characters want is to own the land. Basically the series’ target audience is people who are or have come from a village background since they can connect to this fight over land ownership.
The makers have tried to make the series relatable however the production could have been improved at certain places. First of all, the story has been stretched more than the requirement. To explain, the 6 episode series could have been compiled in 4-5 episodes only for we believe that the time dedicated to watching this series was not worth it. Also the story was overall lacking as there were multiple points where the audience could disconnect or lose interest in the series.
Direction:
The direction done by D. K. Bains has a lot of mistakes that need improvement. One, when two characters are having a conversation, we can’t see the face of the person who is talking, for example, when Preet Bathh and Yaad Grewal are talking in a scene and Grewal is speaking, the shot we see is of his back which is a big negative because not being able to see the expressions or dialogue delivery of the actor makes the audience lose interest. Two, there is another error in the dubbing of the series. So in a scene, we can hear Yaad Grewal say the word “Hanji”, but when you see the scene, there is no lip movement which also disrupts the flow.
There is also an excess of slow motion shots, there’s a sudden shift to slow-mo cuts whenever a character enters. This shift not only hampers with the movement but isn’t even pleasing for the viewer’s eye. After all, it is not important to insert a slow motion effect to indicate an intense scene; there are other ways this could’ve been accomplished. Now, there was a scene between Dheeraj Kumar and Ronak Joshi which (not to let out any spoilers) is completely flat. There could’ve been background music added into the sequence to make it more entertaining or appealing but nothing as such was done. So the viewer just feels the need to fast forward the scenes and there were many scenes which weren’t even required to be added in!
Now this may seem like a spoiler, but to avoid that I’ll keep it a little vague— the way the ending for the characters’ has been done should have been approached differently. In another scene, when Yaad Grewal’s father is killed we can just hear the gunshot but we don’t know the reason why he is killed at all. Moreover, a major blunder was the time frames— there was no clarity whether the scene was happening in the present or from a past scenario. It was only later that you realize what happened.
Acting:
Coming to the acting part of the series, when actors like Yaad Grewal are the star cast, it makes a difference in the final product. A different shade of Grewal can be seen in this project and he has done justice to the character he was told to play. Overall the acting of Saniya Pannu, Mahabir Bhullar and Preet Bathh was good enough. Deepak Kumar’s acting seemed really loud while Ronak Joshi’s acting was actually pretty impressive. Joshi’s acting was on point and it felt like he was made for the character he was cast as!
To conclude, there were scenes that were left unfinished which needed to have more information and at the same time there were unrequired scenes put into the series. There is a lot of space for web series being made by the Punjabi industry for refinement. A major setback in our industry is the issue of dubbing which when done wrong, ruins the whole watching experience.
Lastly, our expectations from Chaupal are much higher after watching films like ‘Please Kill Me’. So getting a web series like ‘Murabba’, which could’ve been improved on so many levels, is a disappointment. Of course, the Punjabi industry is growing with a wider range of content now but everyone needs to up their games if we want the Punjabi industry to rise higher.
