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Release date:
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December 23, 2016
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Director:
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Nitesh Tiwari
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Cast:
Language:
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Aamir Khan, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Zaira Wasim,
Sanya Malhotra, Suhani Bhatnagar, Sakshi Tanwar, Aparshakti Khurana, Girish
Kulkarni, Vivan Bhathena
Hindi
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Sweaty bodies gripping each other
in places strangers should not touch, violence as a form of entertainment, our
baser human instincts getting official and mass encouragement – if you ask me
why I cannot stand contact sports, these would top my answer.
Young Geeta and Babita Phogat
have far more mundane reasons for hating wrestling: no girl they know does it,
so why should they? Dangal is the
story of their father’s bulldog-like determination to make them gold medal
winners for India, and the girls’ own passage from aversion to passion for the
sport.
Nitesh Tiwari’s third film as
director is based on the real-life story of Haryana’s Mahavir Singh Phogat,
patriarch and coach of one of the country’s most unusual sporting families: his
daughters are all wrestling champions, the eldest two – Geeta and Babita – are
Commonwealth Games gold medallists, and Geeta is the first Indian woman wrestler to have ever qualified for the Olympics.
This achievement is particularly striking
considering that Haryana has one of India’s worst child sex ratios and a
horrifying track record in the matter of female foeticide and infanticide.
Dangal is about Mahavir’s
single-mindedness which brings him into conflict with his wife, his community, the country’s
sporting establishment and ultimately, even Geeta.
The first half of the film is
riveting in every way imaginable. Mahavir (played by Aamir Khan) gives up his
wrestling dreams to financially support his family. He then decides to turn his
yet-to-be-born sons into wrestlers who will bring home golds for India. This
dream too is crushed when he and his wife Daya have four daughters instead in
succession. One day when Geeta and Babita bash up a couple of local boys for
abusing them, Mahavir sees the light. He forgot, he says, that a gold medal is
gold whether won by a boy or a girl.
The songs neatly woven into the
narrative in these scenes are catchy, their lyrics steeped in hilarious
colloquialisms. The acting is singularly flawless all around.
Geeta and Babita as children are
played by two brilliant debutants, Zaira
Wasim and Suhani Bhatnagar, who knock it out of the park in every scene (if I
may borrow a phrase from another game). And the storytelling matches up.
No
effort is made to gloss over Mahavir’s flaws: he is a dictator at home and a
terror outside. This is, without question, a traditional set-up where the
husband/father’s word matters more than anyone else’s opinions or beliefs. Even
the local people are afraid of him, but that does not stop them from gossipping
about this man who, they are convinced, will drive his daughters to ruin by
forcing them into a field they believe no woman should touch with a barge pole.
But
Mahavir soldiers on. The pre-interval portion is quick-paced, amusing and
moving in equal parts. To see a son-crazed old villager metamorphose into a
vocal advocate of women’s rights is extremely touching. To witness him in the
conflicting roles of feminist and patriarch, traditionalist and visionary (note
his understanding of celebrity brand endorsements) is insightful and
educational. To watch the girls grow from reluctant wrestlers into committed,
self-driven sportspersons is hugely engaging and poignant.
(Spoiler
alert) The second half is not as assured in its writing. This is when Geeta and
Babita – now played by the older and also gifted Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sanya Malhotra – become their own persons,
and Geeta clashes with Mahavir. The father-daughter conflict is absorbing until
Dangal loses its way in the
rationalisation of the resolution. Are we being convinced to root for Mahavir
instead of Geeta’s new coach because Daddy is always right or because this
particular Daddy happens to be a great coach with strategies better suited to
Geeta’s game? It should be the latter, but in the conversations between the
various players in this saga, the
reasoning is fuzzy.
This
leaves us with the disturbing possibility that the fuzziness is a deliberately
populist move in a nation that by and large still considers it the duty of children to never question their parents.
Equally
troublesome is a portion of the climax that appears to be a bow to the loud
nationalism prevailing in India right now. The nicely seamless fashion in which
the national anthem is played – with relevance – at that point in the narrative
is diluted by a moment of needless, cringe-worthy sloganeering that seems
contrived to cash in on current public sentiment. (Spoiler alert ends)
These choices are what holds Dangal back from the greatness it could
have achieved.
That said it remains a film with numerous attractions, foremost among them
being the superstar at the centre of the action. Aamir Khan as Mahavir Singh
Phogat throws himself into the role with a conviction and commitment that
mirror the real-life Mahavir’s own maniacal pursuit of perfection for his
daughters. The changes Khan has made to his body for this part are impressive
to the point of being intimidating, but what really wins the day is the way
every cell of his being seems infused with the character. Hats off to him for
being as obsessive about excellence as the man he has brought to life on screen
in this film.
It is a measure of his confidence
and his instinct for good cinema that although he is one of Dangal’s producers, he does not allow
Mahavir to overshadow his daughters or his own superstardom to overshadow the
newcomers in the film. The four young women who play Geeta and Babita are smashingly
good. Casting director Mukesh Chhabra has really outdone himself in this film.
The talented satellite cast is the icing on the cake – Sakshi Tanwar is
credible in the small role of their mother, and a scintillating Aparshakti
Khurana (who we recently saw in Saat Uchakkey) plays their sweet, supportive cousin.
A large part of the second half
of Dangal is taken up by Geeta’s
wrestling matches. The director has wisely chosen to show us these bouts in
their entirety rather than just edited clips. The film then becomes a medley of
matches that are so well shot, so well played by Fatima
Sana Shaikh and the other performers, and so well choreographed that they take
nothing away from Dangal’s cinematic
value.
The
ultimate test for this film is whether it can get a viewer (like me) who
dislikes contact sports to bite her nails with tension through Geeta Phogat’s
multiple encounters on the mat. I do not
know about others, but I can tell you I needed a nail file after watching Dangal. A personal salaam to Nitesh
Tiwari for that.
During
the Rio Olympics this year, the discourse on sporting
achievement in India was dominated by those who were so frustrated
by the corruption in the country’s sporting
establishment and our poor show in the medals tally, that even
non-medallists were held up as icons. No offence intended to those who
disagree, but while we do need to laud our players for ever tiny step covered
despite the huge odds they face, we must question the defeatist logic in taking
out celebratory processions for those who do
not win.
Dangal
may be confusingly cautious around popular notions on the parental front, but
in the matter of sporting achievement it
does not mince words: silver is second best, it tells us unequivocally, and
there is nothing wrong in aiming for gold. In an India that remains
doubtful about the virtues of ambition, in a world that continues to consider
ambition a dirty word for women in particular, such clarity is remarkable and
inspiring.
Rating
(out of five stars): ***
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U
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Running time:
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161 minutes
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This
review has also been published on Firstpost:
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