Sunday, October 27, 2024

Director’s Cut with Nandita Das: “For too long, men have controlled all narratives, so I think my female gaze on men is important”


Nandita Das’ third film as a director, Zwigato, stars Kapil Sharma as Manas, a delivery person for an app-based service. Manas and his wife Pratima (Shahana Goswami) struggle to run their home on a meagre income dependent on the whims of algorithms and a faceless corporation. Zwigato was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022, from where it travelled to prestigious festivals in Busan, Kerala and elsewhere, before arriving in Indian theatres in March 2023. This week it dropped on Amazon Prime Video.

 

In my review published on Firstpost in 2022, I had written: 

 

“Zwigato might appear non-political in comparison with Nandita’s Hindi-Urdu-Gujarati Firaaq (2008), which was set shortly after the 2002 Gujarat riots began, and the Hindi-Urdu Manto (2018), a biopic of the Pakistani writer Saadat Hasan Manto, but that would be a superficial reading of this film. Below the surface of the seemingly placid tale it tells is…the roiling mud of India’s caste, class, religious and gender divisions.”

 

(You can read the complete review here.)

 

To get Das’ take on some of the points raised in my review, I reached out to her for an interview, which I’m featuring here as part of Director’s Cut, an ongoing series that I began in 2016. In this series, I speak to a director after watching their new film, and dissect its script, production and politics with them. (Click here for my first Director’s Cut – it was published in June 2016. The interviewee was Anurag Kashyap.) 

 

Eight years since I started this series, unfortunately the norm in India continues to be that during a film’s promotional period, the crew and cast give a spate of interviews without previewing the film for the press they’re meeting. After the release, most of them become unavailable to journalists who, having watched the film, wish to ask specific questions. That’s because unlike generic Q&As, pointed questions can be challenging. 

 

Nandita Das does not shy away from the challenge of a conversation. In this in-depth interview, we discuss Zwigato, her body of work as a director, and her personal journey so far. Excerpts:  

 

Q: It’s interesting that you chose to set Zwigato in a location where we don’t often see Hindi cinema set. 

 

A: Yes, probably never. 

 

I’m half Odia, and Bhubaneswar is a lovely city, so I’ve always wondered why we haven’t shot there. It’s a quintessential 2-tier city because it’s got narrow lanes and ancient temples – you know, the old town. Then you have these big wide roads lined with trees, roundabouts, malls and high-rises. In some ways it represents our country, which has one foot in tradition and one in modernity. So, I thought, why not Bhubaneswar? 

 

For me, the language in the film is also very important when you shoot in a place. Depending on the class and region, people speak different languages. So just as in Firaaq I had Gujarati, in Zwigato I have Odia.  

 

Q: What drew you to the life of a deliveryman for an app-based service provider?

 

A: During the pandemic, we were all using apps, whether to get things delivered or book cabs. We were trapped in our phones. There was contactless delivery, even tipping was on the phone, so gig workers were invisible to us. 

 

The gig economy was almost seen as a saviour during the pandemic. They are such a big part of the new urban India, yet we were ignorant of the challenges these people face. They were used to a traditional work environment with co-workers and an employer you can talk to if there’s a problem. In a country like ours with low literacy levels, figuring out everything on an app, that too all by yourself, is tough. You feel isolated. The only thing linking you to other delivery persons is that they’re all wearing the same T-shirt. Imagine how challenging it is.

 

Actually this film was supposed to be a short film. I was putting an anthology together with four directors on what modern India is about, and this was the story I was working on. The anthology fell apart because two directors backed out when their other projects got greenlit. But Sameer Nair, who was to produce the anthology, said, ‘I really like your story. Why don’t you make it into a feature film?’ And I said, no, it’s a day’s story, I don’t think I’m invested enough, I don’t understand the world of incentives, algorithms, ratings, and I don’t think I’ll enjoy the research process. But I’m glad he nudged me to do it. When I started writing, I began developing the woman’s character. And the story also became about how we’ve normalised class, caste, religion and gender disparities.


 

When I started bringing out those layers, I began embracing it as a feature film. And it expanded into a four-day story, not just about this character, but also his family and the larger context in which they lived

 

Showing other working-class people like daily-wagers, construction workers, house help etis almost a motif in Zwigato. They are so much a part of our lives. Like when Manas brings the groceries, immediately the woman of the house calls out to her house help to take the package inside. When he enters the cafe, someone’s cleaning the window. You see daily-wagers throughout the film waiting every day to be taken for work. In a way, gig work is a modern version of the daily-wager’s work. Both sets of people face the same worries. Both have no employee benefits. Both deal with everyday anxieties about their next meal.

 

Q: Zwigato is the least obviously political of your three films. With Firaaq and Manto, there was clarity that they are political…


A: I think it’s all a perception. I mean, Firaaq was probably the most political in that sense, but it still remains a human story. There is no direct blame game. I actually do not believe that serves a purpose in a film. I want to subliminally go into the subconscious of the viewer. You will not even be aware of it, but next time you see a delivery person, will you perhaps notice him a little more? Will you make the effort to go into your app and give him a 5-star rating?

 

For me, everything is personal and political. Overtly political anyway is too didactic for me. None of my films were conscious choices in that sense. Firaaq happened because I felt compelled to tell that story after what happened in Gujarat. Manto happened because I read about him in 2012 during his centenary celebration. I felt a deep connect with him and his work. I also felt my father was very Manto-esque, so I felt like I know Manto. And Zwigato happened because of what I saw in the pandemic. Everything has been an organic response. It’s not like I said to myself, ‘Okay, which story should I tell?’ or ‘I do not want to make this as political as that one.’ If you look for it, Zwigato is about gender as well although...

 

Q: No, actually, that was my question: You talk about gender, class, religion and caste in Zwigato. It’s a political film despite not being obviously so…

 

A: That’s reflective of my own journey. Like I said earlier, I don’t want to make anything too obvious, because then it gets polarised. When something is more human, it touches your head and heart, without you consciously even knowing it. Also different people connect with different things. Some will notice the motifs of the working class more than others. Some people outside India may not understand the Babasaheb reference. But  I don’t think of anybody when I’m doing the film. I’m driven by my desire to tell the story that I feel needs to be told. 


For instance the way I approach gender. Both Zwigato and Manto have male protagonists, but the relationship with the woman is extremely important. While I want to create empathy for the protagonist – in these cases, the man – many a times I want to evoke greater empathy for the woman, because it’s still a patriarchal world and he’s still responding from that conditioning. I don’t want to over-simplify these complex matters, and make them simplistic. 


It’s easier to make a didactic, black-and-white film. Sometimes, when dealing with nuances, there is a fear that people won’t fully understand. Mainstream cinema is so dramatic that the audience is used to big twists and turns. But life is not so dramatic every day. Small losses of dignity and compromises that so many people have to make daily – these interest me. I don’t like to spoonfeed or manipulate emotions or feel the burden to please many people. A film has to reflect your own personal journey, and how you see things around yourself.

 

Q: Zwigato references the common phenomenon of housing complexes having separate lifts for household help. Many people who consider themselves liberal, vehemently argue that this is a class issue, not a caste issue. How would you address them?

 

A: If anyone says they don’t really care about caste, it’s because they are from the upper caste, and caste has not mattered to them in their life. How many people from a Dalit community were in the schools or colleges we went to, or are in our workspaces? Ask a person who is reminded of it every day. They will tell you about the discrimination they suffer. And most often, caste and class are deeply intertwined. When you are marginalised, you remain underprivileged on all accounts. Upward mobility is almost impossible. 

 

People often ask, ‘Oh, should we employ a Dalit or a woman even if they are not good enough?’ Everybody wants black-and-white answers. Meritocracy is at the cost of wanting to correct historical wrongs. That’s why we’re uncomfortable with affirmative action or don’t look harder for genuine representation. These are complex things and in a less-than-two-hour film, not all aspects of society can be shown with the same depth, but there are layers for those who are open to ‘seeing’ it. So in the film, when a woman asks Pratima, Shahana’s character, to take the other lift, ‘Voh service lift,’ I’m just holding up a mirror to everyday discrimination that we’ve normalised. Anyone who’s felt disturbed by it in real life will notice it in the film. Someone who hasn’t spotted it yet in real life might do so after seeing this film. But that scene will also make sense to those who view it only on the surface. 


Q: You spoke of the fear that people may not understand a point you are trying to make. Was this scene in Zwigato one of those moments?

 

A: Sometimes people ask, ‘I understood, but will others understand it?’ When one believes in subtlety and nuance, there is always a possibility that some may not get it. But I’m not here to explain every little thing and undermine the audience. Also, I have to be true to my context, and if some don’t see it, then so be it. That’s a challenge filmmakers like us will always face. But then that’s the kind of cinema we like to watch and make. 

 

When I watch a Malayalam or Spanish or Japanese film, I may not get 100 per cent of every nuance, but if there is a universality of emotions, it will move me. Then it doesn’t matter whether or not you understand every reference. That’s why we say, the more local a film is, the more global it is. You have to be honest to your context, and it’s almost magical how people actually get it. At festivals in Africa, Russia, Korea etc, where people may know less about our socio-economic culture, the post-screening Q&A always reveals to me that they understand the layers with far more depth than even those who may be more familiar with the context. 

 

I don’t let the fear of not being fully understood overshadow my creative choices. It’s just the nature of the beast, if you want to be true to your context. Like some asked, ‘Why do you have Odia in Zwigato, and not just Hindi?’ But why would two Odia people talk in Hindi?! If a third person comes, who is Hindi-speaking like my main characters, then they will. And that’s what happens in the film. It makes the place look more authentic. It will be good if we all make the effort to know about different parts of India and not try to homogenise it. And thanks to OTTs, we’re anyway learning to read subtitles.

 

Q: You’ve neither demonised the upper classes nor deified the disadvantaged in Zwigato. You’ve not romanticised Manas or made him flawless. But filmmakers tend to do that. 

 

A: That is when you want to make films simplistic, and don’t want to push the audience to deal with ambiguities, for fear of losing them. But to be a true mirror to society, you have to explore the grey areas of life and relationships. I want to invoke empathy for the struggles of my protagonist, but he could also be not-sensitive to his wife – after all, he comes from a patriarchal context. Yet, they basically have a good relationship. They care for and love each other. All of this can co-exist, as it does in life. I enjoy the challenge of showing such complexities in a way that is felt and even understood without dumbing things down for the audience. 

 

For me, it’s not interesting to take the easier route of saying this is good or this is bad. Who, after all, is the villain in Zwigato? The company? The consumer? Society at large? It’s a bit of many things, right? And that’s the complexity you want to bring in: that we are all complicit. I want to show a mirror to all of us, to our prejudices, our fears, and shed light on people who are hidden in plain sight. 

 

Q: You’ve made three feature films so far, and the women in them are very important. All filmmakers say, ‘I must make a film that comes naturally to me.’ When will a film that comes naturally to you have a female protagonist?

 

A: The one I am working on! It’s a relationship film, so the man and the woman, both are important. But it does sort of lean towards the woman a little more and I am not apologetic about it. If the reality is skewed, then its representation also has to be.

 

But like I said, everything has been organic for me. Firaaq did not have any male protagonist. It was an ensemble cast and all the women, whether it was Deepti Naval’s or Shahana’s or Amruta’s or Tisca’s character, were all layered, vulnerable and at the same time strong characters. No less than any male characters. The second one was because it was Manto. His gender, or even his nationality and religion, were just a context. I’ve already explained my personal connect with him, and also how Zwigato organically happened. I write only when I clearly know what I want to communicate. 

 

Also, for too long, men have controlled all narratives, as to how men and women should be portrayed, so I think my female gaze on men is important.

 

(Minor spoilers ahead)

 

And just because I’m a woman director, I don’t have to make only a certain kind of film. My life experiences must be impacting my writing or how I visualise a film. It is all that I see and internalise. For instance, when Pratima goes out to earn for the first time, at the age of 35, she’s experiencing that mixed feeling that women have when they step out of the house, both the excitement and the fear of the unknown, and Manas says, “Haan haan, pata hai, tum humse zyaada kamaaogi’ – where does that come from?  

 

(Spoiler alert ends)

 

Besides, not every woman-centric film is necessarily feminist or has a female gaze. We have enough examples of that – let’s not name them! Some have been touted as feminist, but they really aren’t. I think my instinctive and inherent gaze is that of a woman and it is bound to be on, not just women, but men, children, stories, everything around us. 

 

Q: Okay, but I did not bring up the fact that you’re a woman director. I’ll repeat the question. When I ask filmmakers – and of course most Indian filmmakers are men – why their protagonists are always men, they get defensive and say, ‘Shouldn’t I write the stories that come naturally to me?’ My response always is: would you ask yourself why the stories that come naturally to you are stories of men? With regard to yourself, you make an interesting point, which is that a female gaze on men is important. I take that. But could I still ask, setting aside Firaaq, why is it the stories that have come to you naturally…

 

A: But I’ve only made three films! 

 

Q: Yes, of course, but I’m going to give you a hard time. C’mon! (we both laugh)

 

A: But I’m just saying, Anna, I’ve only done three films… 

 

Q: I totally get that, but still...

 

A: …of which one-third is an ensemble... 

 

Q: Yes, so let’s set Firaaq aside, but…

 

A: ...and in both Manto and this one, the women characters are very layered. 

 

Q: We’re setting Firaaq aside. The women in Manto and Zwigato are important, and I realise some filmmakers would make the same story with women unimportant or erased. I respect that, but I still wondered. Manto was a writer. This world is full of fantastic women writers, some of whom I’m sure you love. A whole new dynamic would have come in if the delivery person in Zwigato was a woman…

 

A: But there aren’t that many. I wasn’t trying to make a unique...

 

Q: …so why is it the stories that came naturally to you in both cases were stories of men?

 

A: Because I didn’t look at it as: this person is a man! It is only after Zwigato, for the first time I felt, filmmaking is what I want to do. What I’m saying is that for me to make that conscious choice is a recent turn in my journey. When you talk to other filmmakers, they’re professional filmmakers. I’ve been a hesitant actor. I lived in Delhi when I was acting. I always felt specialisation is overrated and an imposition. What if you have varied interests? I don’t want to specialise in anything, I don’t want to excel, I just want to do things that speak to me and I like doing. 

 

Q: But you understand, I’m not asking: Nandita, why didn’t you consciously choose to make films on women? 

 

A: Yes, I understand where you’re coming from. You’re asking about what I’ve been naturally drawn to. And my answer is, I was naturally drawn to life and its complexities, irrespective of the narrow identity of the protagonist. Who are they really, what about their story grabs me and why? For instance, in Manto, I instinctively wanted to make his wife Safia’s character stronger than what the family kept telling me, ‘Ammi toh bahut hi gentle thhi.’ But I thought, living with a man like Manto must have been tough, don’t tell me she never protested. They would say, ‘Nahinshe never.’ Then her sister told me she had this skin allergy all over her body in the last couple of years that vanished after he died. That gave me a clue to her suppressed emotions, so I told myself I’m going to give a voice to what she must be thinking, feeling, going through. And I told the daughter, I’m sorry what you see on screen may not be the mother that you described to me, I have given her a little more agency. When they saw the film at the premiere, I was nervous. But the first thing they said was that they loved how their mother was portrayed. They felt finally they could hear what she must have felt. I felt vindicated. 

 

Even in Zwigato, though it is a kind of a love story, it has its edges. A woman can love someone and yet rebel in her own way if she is wronged. 

 

Q: You’ve spoken about your personal journey while making these films. What did you learn about yourself while making Zwigato?

 

A: This is a very personal journey we’re talking about! I don’t think I’ve spoken about it. I realise there’s a ruthless side to filmmaking, where it is justified to do many things for the sake of art. One is often confronted with a choice of film versus people – the dilemma when you need something for a film, but it would make things difficult or uncomfortable for someone involved. It’s almost a choice between life and work! And I find myself increasingly choosing life. I choose people’s well-being over what may seem necessary for a shot in a film. 

 

I don’t know if it’s a gender thing, but I’ve worked with many, especially male, directors who’d go to any length for a film. Maybe film requires that level of passion since it’s very demanding work. After all, no one hears the backstory about how you made it and will judge only by what is seen on screen. And you hear horror stories of directors, where for their film they’ve gone to crazy lengths, even compromising on the lives of people. I cannot relate to that anymore.

 

Not that I was ever going to that extent, but sometimes I wonder if I am less passionate as a filmmaker. I’m still anal about every little detail of the filmmaking process and I am fully hands-on in every aspect of it, but when I’m confronted with that dilemma, I feel that no film is greater than anyone’s life. And I want to continue being mindful of that. 

 

For example, an old lady in Zwigato, the one who plays Kapil’s mother, had to travel one-and-a-half hours to reach the shoot from her home in Cuttack. One day we were shooting till really late. She was very spirited and was happy to stay back, but I could see she was tired and was anyway rather frail. So I let her go, because anyway she was sleeping in that scene, so we put pillows and managed. But when I was shooting, I thought to myself, actually, if her legs were showing in this one it would have been nice…but it’s okay. Not the end of the world!

 

You know, small things like this. We shifted a shoot because of a child actor’s exam. Now, I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, because it might harm my films, but I can feel this personal shift more and more. At the same time, this is the first time I’m saying, filmmaking is what I’m going to do. It’s strange that both are happening simultaneously. We’ll see what really comes out in the next film. 

 

All Photos Courtesy Wikipedia

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Ullozhukku: Parvathy and Urvashi together on screen are just priceless. (Review 802)

Release date:

June 20, 2024

Director:

Christo Tomy

Cast:

Urvashi, Parvathy Thiruvothu, Arjun Radhakrishnan, Jaya Kurup, Alencier Ley Lopez, Veenah Naair, Prasanth Murali 

Language:

Malayalam 

 


There are few places on Earth more devastatingly beautiful than Kuttanad. Few settings better suited to a film named Ullozhukku.   

 

The title is the Malayalam word for undercurrent. Kuttanad in the monsoons, with its vast, often intimidating expanses of water punctuated by thick greens and islands of human habitation, is home to many such hidden tides.   

 

The placid liquid terrain on which Ullozhukku unfolds is a metaphor for the outward calm of conservative societies. In these circles, silent suffering to keep up a façade of ‘respectability’ is valued over the truth, and the floodwaters of social conformity often drown happiness.   

 

The protagonists in this story are Anju (Parvathy Thiruvothu) and Leelamma (Urvashi). Anju had an arranged marriage with Leelamma’s son Thomaskutty (Prasanth Murali). Rains are lashing Kuttanad, and the swollen backwaters have covered the grounds of their home when he dies following a grave illness. With preparations underway for Thomaskutty’s burial, long-submerged secrets rise to the surface and lies are unexpectedly exposed.  

 

Ullozhukku is written and directed by Christo Tomy whose firm hold on the material at hand, aided by Kiran Das’ editing, complements the casting coup of the season. The joy of seeing Urvashi, a giant of her craft, share the screen with Parvathy Thiruvothu, one of the finest actors of her generation, is enough to make a cinephile dizzy. When the gripping narrative culminates in a satisfying climax, there is reason for even greater euphoria: because here at last is a script worthy of these wonderful women who have snatched stardom from the jaws of patriarchy but deserve far more than they’ve got in India’s men-obsessed film industries.  

 

From the moment we first meet Anju and Leelamma, it is evident that they care for each other. Gradually though, we see that nothing is as it should be in this tharavad.   

 

Mainstream Indian cinema rarely explores relationships between women at length or sans  stereotyping. Jeo Baby’s The Great Indian Kitchen (2020) showcased female allyship for a change when it defied the social stereotype that daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law are forever at war. While that was just an aside in that film, albeit an important one, Ullozhukku in its entirety is devoted to a complex ammaayiyamma-marumakal bond written without pre-conceived notions.  

 

Anju and Leelamma’s sense of desolation is mirrored by their desolate surroundings.   

 

Shehnad Jalal’s exquisite panoramic views of the scenery in Ullozhukku hark back to M.J. Radhakrishnan’s glorious frames in Jayaraj’s Ottaal (2015) which, to my mind, featured arguably the best use of the camera ever in Kuttanad. When Shehnad’s lens is trained on people, he seems to shadow rather than just observe them. The effect, when teamed with Sushin Shyam’s music and Jayadevan Chakkadath and Anil Radhakrishnan’s sound design, gives the film a brooding thriller-like air, although it is more social drama than mystery.  

 

The quiet of the countryside belies the churn in and around this extended family. The elders among them presume the right to decide their offspring’s future. One man grants himself the right to violently subjugate an ‘errant’ woman. Society grants another the right to use her without a care for her wishes. And a seeming progressive momentarily reveals a regressive mindset. 

 

Ullozhukku features a disturbing scene of spousal violence, but not of the sort one is accustomed to. Physical abuse is not normalised here in the way abuse by husbands often is in mainstream Malayalam cinema (Exhibit A: Ayyappanum Koshiyum). Instead, the implication is that domestic violence is the stuff a woman’s nightmares are made of possibly because it has been her reality. Over the course of the narrative, the film also invites us to reflect on a husband’s disregard for his wife’s reluctance to have sex with him on a particular occasion.  

 

Christo’s script has an interesting take on the manner in which society and family lay claim to the female body, more so a pregnant woman’s body. Malayalam cinema has already engaged in depth with the pro-choice debate in Jude Anthony Joseph’s Sara’s (2021) – a theme that the rest of India’s cinemas largely avoid. Ullozhukku nudges us to ponder over maternal rights instead through characters aggressively describing a foetus to its mother as “my son’s baby” and “my child” rather than hers. Their attitude is reflected in a woman clinging creepily to the belly of an expectant mother despite the latter’s obvious discomfort at being touched in this fashion.  

 

For the record, Anju and Leelamma’s families are Christian, a fact that’s there for all to see but becomes a point only in a fleeting flash of sectarianism in their midst. Ullozhukku’s representation of the community is different from the cinema of Lijo Jose Pellissery and Don Palathara that are packed with Christian symbolism and customs. This spectrum of portrayals is in keeping with the normalisation of Muslims and Christians as a whole in Malayalam cinema, and a divergence from Hindi cinema’s idea of Muslims as a homogeneous bloc to be featured in scripts if their religious identity plays a part in the plot, while Christians are more or less invisible these days. Normalisation makes space for depictions of class and caste hierarchies within a minority group. In the case of Ullozhukku, the starting point of Anju’s troubles is that her parents wanted to marry her into a wealthy, reputed family, unlike theirs, irrespective of the emotional cost to her.

 

Because of the maturity and nuance on display almost throughout Ullozhukku, two elements stick out for suggesting that all parties here are equally culpable in the goings-on. No, they are not. Some deserve to be held to account more than others. The first instance of this balancing act is a conversation between Anju’s mother-in-law and her sister who is a nun – it is jarring but excusable. The second is Anju’s father George (Alencier Ley Lopez).  

 

(Minor spoilers in this paragraph) Hypocrisy can be debated. Beating a woman cannot. The glint of peace in George’s eyes as the camera rests on his face one last time in the finale is unearned. Every other individual in this saga may merit redemption, not he who assaulted his daughter. The script, however, finds another lying relative to blame for Anju’s present misery.

 

This absolution for a fictional man is a glaring contrast to the eagerness with which a real-life woman was convicted on screen by Christo’s true crime series, Curry and Cyanide: The Jolly Joseph Case (2023) on Netflix. That show was beset with loopholes and unaddressed questions, while it damned an alleged serial killer whose trial is still on in a lower court in Kerala.

 

The indulgence towards George in Ullozhukku parallels the long rope that the film industry has given Alencier himself for his transgressions including sexual misconduct, while women like Parvathy have faced consequences for speaking out against patriarchy and violence in the industry. Before anyone brings it up, I’ll add: no viewer is obliged to separate the art from the artist, more so when the art mirrors the artist (in this case, when a writer’s sympathy for an undeserving character mirrors society’s high tolerance levels for the wrongdoings of the actor playing that part).

 

Unwittingly then, the leniency shown towards a man in the script underlines Parvathy’s brilliance alongside Urvashi’s towering performance.  

 

It has been too long since we last saw Parvathy as a well-written lead. Anju’s trauma and anger are the pivotal ullozhukku in this film. Aided by excellent characterisation, Parvathy gives Anju a compelling interiority that pulls us along as she oscillates between kindness and deception, fear, desperation, indecision, barely controlled rage and assertiveness in rapid succession.  

 

In a sense, Leelamma is the most challenging role in this script because she is not always likeable but it is crucial that the audience does not outrightly reject her. In Urvashi’s hands, she becomes a person towards whom one feels anger, even irritation, yet also, empathy. Her vulnerability is a constant. Unlike George, Leelamma’s redemption is well-earned. 

 

Men-centric cinema routinely treats women as dispensable addendums in a world that is rightfully male. Ullozhukku’sclearly delineated supporting characters are the nth example of how women-centric cinema is never similarly dismissive of men. My reservations about Anju’s father are to do with the politics of the writing, not its rigour. The most comprehensively written man in the story is Arjun Radhakrishnan’s Rajeev. Arjun is a perfect pick to play a person who automatically invites warmth, and when he attracts disgust, is not completely diminished by it. 

 

Ullozhukku marks the Malayalam debut of the Hindi film major RSVP (producer Ronnie Screwvala’s company) along with Honey Trehan and Abhishek Chaubey’s MacGuffin Pictures. They have chosen well. In a year in which the biggest Malayalam blockbusters have either sidelined women or failed to acknowledge their existence, Ullozhukku – like the exceptional Aattam before it – spells hope. Powered by Urvashi, Parvathy and consistent direction, Ullozhukku is everything that is precious about the best of Malayalam cinema: naturalistic, realistic, and an illustration of how both qualities could be a source of edge-of-the-seat entertainment, contrary to conventional wisdom in commercial cinema elsewhere.  

 

Rating (out of 5 stars): 4   

 

Running time:

123 minutes 

 

Visuals courtesy: IMDB 

 

RELATED LINK: Read my column in The Economic Times on Premalu and the sidelining of women in films that claim to represent us, published on March 2, 2024

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/et-commentary/view-not-waxing-too-eloquent-about-waning-reenu/articleshow/108167230.cms 

Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Crew: Girls just wanna have fun and break the law – Bollywood finally gets it (Review 801)

 

Release date:

March 29, 2024

Director:

Rajesh A. Krishnan

Cast:

Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kriti Sanon, Rajesh Sharma, Saswata Chatterjee, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Kapil Sharma, Diljit Dosanjh, Trupti Khamkar

Language:

Hindi 

   


Why are women-centric films always about serious issues? Why don’t we get to act in crazy comedies of the kind routinely made for guys? I remember Madhuri Dixit Nene raising these questions in an interview she gave me about 20 years back while I was with The Indian Express. Back then, blue moons would pass between goofy, fun flicks revolving around women, such as Seeta aur Geeta (1972) starring Hema Malini, Khoobsurat (1980) with Rekha, Chaalbaaz (1989) headlined by the great Sridevi, and Dixit’s own Raja (1995). The Hindi film industry’s approach to comedies is still unfair to women, but it has improved in recent years, owing considerably to the producer Rhea Kapoor whose latest screen adventure is Crew, jointly produced by Ektaa Kapoor, directed by Rajesh A. Krishnan, written by Nidhi Mehra and Mehul Suri.     

Starring Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Kriti Sanon, Crew comes not far behind 2023’s Thank You for Coming! in which Bhumi Pednekar’s character (spoiler alert, hehe) attained sexual nirvana at her own hands after years of trial and error in bed with men. In Crew, Geeta Sethi (Tabu), Jasmine (Kapoor Khan) and Divya Rana (Sanon) have settled for their respective Plan Bs because Plan A has not (or not yet) worked out. They are flight attendants on a sinking ship called Kohinoor Airlines run by the stinking rich and corrupt Vijay Walia. The minimal effort invested in disguising the real-life entities referenced here is just one of the sources of amusement coming at us from all directions in Crew 

 

Geeta has long wanted to use her PF to start an eatery in Goa with her husband (Kapil Sharma), but Kohinoor is not paying up. Jasmine is waiting for her business idea to find takers. Divya was an academic achiever and ace athlete in school whose actual aim was to be a pilot. As Kohinoor gradually goes under and the friends see their dreams receding further into the distance, they decide to break the law in a bid to improve their bank balances and ultimately, to also get back at the unscrupulous Walia. Their mini scams culminate in one big fat heist.  

  

Crew has no pretensions to being intellectual. The tone is determinedly flip for the most part. To dismiss it as mindless would be wrong though. In a cinematic universe where Dixit Nene’s hope for women is still only being fulfilled in baby steps, Crew’s significance lies in the way it defies the industry’s tradition of equating “women-centric” with “grave” and “weepie”.  

  

Discrimination, harassment and violence are intrinsic to the experience of being female in most cultures, but laughter is one of the tools that helps us survive – and finally, finally, the Hindi film industry seems to be getting it. Crew is part of the emerging trend sparked by this realisation. The bonus here is that, as with other women-led Hindi film comedies so far, the director and writers of Crew too demonstrate that it is possible to elicit laughs without being sexist in the way makers of mass-targeted men-centric comedies usually are.  

 

After years of crass quips about women’s bodies and rape jokes in men-centric comedies, it is a pleasure to see the agency in a film’s humour being handed to its women characters, and to watch these women crack up as they toss double entendre about themselves at each other without trivialising violence or themselves or women at large. When a passenger gets handsy with one of the trio in Crew, his conduct is not humourised. What is humourised is his shock at a woman striking back. And guess what, Dudes Who Write Sexist Comedy? Team Mehra & Suri have written an entire women-centred comedy film without a single wisecrack about the rape of men. 

  

The lesson from Crew for the likes of Indra Kumar (the Masti series) and Sajid Khan (Housefull 2) is this: you can joke about sex without demeaning other genders, without making light of violence, and without lazily aiming at the oppressed and their oppression. 

  

The film is high on energy owing to its unrelenting plot developments and infectious music, in particular the reboot of the blockbuster number Choli ke peeche from Subhash Ghai’s Khalnayak (1993) and Sona kitna sona hai remixed from David Dhawan’s Hero No. 1 (1997). Geeta, Jasmine and Divya are spunky, funny and flawed. Though they have a mountain of troubles on their plates, their ruminative and sorrowful moments are never maudlin.  

 

Crew’s script and craft could have done with some polishing up though. There is, for instance, an awkwardly shot post-interval scene in which the three women hide behind a luggage trolley, and for some seconds, it looks like a decapitated Kapoor Khan’s head is on top of a suitcase. Sanon does not come off much better in that frame. If this was intentional, it would have been a hoot, but it comes across as unwitting. Greater finesse would have made Crew a better film and a different film but as things stand, it is both entertaining and thoughtful, despite its rough edges.  

  

I want to believe that Crew’s and Laapataa Ladies’ simultaneous success at the box office marks an important turning point for the representation of women in mainstream Hindi cinema. For the record, both are very different. Laapataa Ladies is sublime and finessed. Crew is rambunctious (in a good way) but some of the writing also feels hurried. The heist, for instance, is simplistic. What makes it work nevertheless is that the narrative pace and the cast’s conviction leave little time for analysis. Frankly, I have felt no differently about most heist films I have watched. This genre tends to demand a suspension of disbelief. A filmmaker’s challenge is to convince the audience that the film is worth that effort. Krishnan is very much up to the task. 

  

Geeta, Jasmine and Divya get equal treatment and space in Crew’s screenplay. Cinematographer Anuj Rakesh Dhawan has also shot them without celebrating one body over the other, without being sheepish about any one’s girth or complexion, without de-emphasising any one’s age.  

Tabu is now reportedly 52, Kapoor Khan is 43, Sanon is 33. The camera does not make any visible distinction between them. Any concessions made have been made unobtrusively.  

 

Dhawan’s work in Crew, no doubt in keeping with Krishnan’s vision, is a reminder that, as I wrote in The Economic Times in the context of Laapataa Ladies, “‘The male gaze’ is not merely ‘the gaze of a man’. It is the gaze of a man who lacks empathy... Likewise, ‘the female gaze’ is not merely ‘the gaze of a woman’. It is the gaze of a woman who possesses empathy.” Illustrating this premise, the women in Crew are treated as people, not mere bodies. That each in her own way has a fabulous body is a bonus, which too is celebrated unapologetically. 

 

Given the care that has gone into these choices, I do not see why Crew’s soundtrack is dominated by male voices or why the heroines are shown lip syncing to a male singer’s voice in the end 

 

In an interview she gave me after Veere Di Wedding, Rhea Kapoor had explained why she got Badshah to sing Tareefanfor the central female quartet: “The idea came from this Beyonce-Jay Z video where Beyonce has kind of taken on Jay Z’s mantle and kind of raps for him – there’s something so f*cking empowering about that.” The problem is that a woman singing for a man has been used over time as a comical device in films, so describing the reverse – a man singing for a woman actor – as “empowering” comes from the same subconscious conditioning that has got even progressive women equating the “balls”, not the uterus or vagina, with courage. 

 

This discordant note particularly stands out because Kapoor, Krishnan & Co have got so much else right here. Quite unusually for an overtly commercial film, Crew’s scriptwriters do not view the presence of a male romantic partner as mandatory to complete a woman. The leads don’t measure their self-worth in such terms either. Geeta has a warm relationship with her spouse that is unconventional going by society’s expectations of who ought to be the income provider in a family. Without batting an eyelid, the writers write Jasmine as a single woman, while Divya bumps into an old flame (Diljit Dosanjh).  

 

There is so much that Crew does unobtrusively while doggedly entertaining us, that its politics could easily be underrated. Its attitude to women apart, note how a turbanned Sikh is not only the romantic interest of a glamorous woman, Dhawan’s camerawork and Dosanjh’s vibe in the role purposefully make the man sexy. This is not a lens that usually falls on Sikh men in Hindi cinema who have for decades been positioned variously as boisterous, patriotic, dutiful, loyal, comical, buffoonish, innocent and loveable, but rarely as hotties. Nice touch.  

  

Krishnan’s first film, Lootcase (2020), too dealt with a primary character’s questionable morality and ill-gotten wealth. It was well begun but half done. In Crew, he lives up to the initial promise of a lark right till the end without once treating the audience like idiots or insensitive jerks.  

 

The smart script is elevated by Tabu, Kapoor Khan and Sanon’s crackling chemistry. The casting coup goes well beyond their stardom. The three come across as real-life friends who had a blast while shooting this film. Their enjoyment is contagious and makes for a cracking combination with their natural affinity for comedy, adding yet another feather to Rhea Kapoor’s expanding filmography of resolutely women-centric, resolutely hilarious-not-stupid Hindi cinema.  

      

Rating (out of 5 stars): 3.5   

 

Running time:

120 minutes 

 

Visuals courtesy: IMDB 

 

RELATED LINK: Read my column in The Economic Times on Laapataa Ladies and the female gaze published on February 18, 2024

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/et-commentary/engazing-with-empathy-through-the-female-gaze/articleshow/107783299.cms