[1] The film, like the play, is set in Peshwa-ruled Pune in the eighteenth century, and is based on the lives of real historical characters.
Ghashiram then sells his own daughter to Nana (Mohan Agashe) to secure the post of Kotwal (police chief).
Ghashiram turns into a tyrannical official, introducing permits for everything and putting people in jail for small offences.
They were all influenced by the work of Hungarian filmmaker Miklos Jancso, known for his long takes and choreographed camera movements.
Hariharan adds: "It was a combination of all these factors — Tendulkar, Badal Sircar, Jancso, and one-and-a-half-lakh rupees that we borrowed from a nationalised bank — that resulted in the film.
One reviewer writes: "Ghashiram Kotwal seems like a seminal work now, a crossroads in terms of ideological and aesthetic experimentation ..."[1] According to the Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, it is a "remarkable avant-garde experiment in collective film-making".
[6] The Berlin-based Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art [de] has restored Ghashiram Kotwal[1] and released it in DVD format.