REVIEW 785: RAAT AKELI HAI

Release date: July 31, 2020 (on Netflix) 

Director: Honey Trehan

Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Radhika Apte, Padmavati Rao, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Nishant Dahiya, Ila Arun, Shreedhar Dubey, Aditya Srivastava, Riya Shukla, Shweta Tripathi, Swanand Kirkire, Tigmanshu Dhulia

Language: Hindi

Sometimes a film has the power to grip you from the very second it takes off. Honey Trehan’s Raat Akeli Hai (RAH) does that, grabbing attention with a vice-like hold from the moment it opens with a chilling murder on a deserted highway in the inky blackness of the night. 

Fast forward to five years later, and there is another murder: a rich old man is found shot and with his face bashed up on his wedding night. Inspector Jatil Yadav is called in to investigate (yes, Jatil, not Jatin – there is an amusing story there).

The elderly victim had money and a wealth of people around him. Yadav realises within minutes of being inserted into their lives that no one is above suspicion: not the dead man’s pregnant daughter, not his drug-taking son or the son-in-law whose sole concern is his claim to the family fortune. Then there is the victim’s enigmatic sister and niece, an arrogant nephew, the young bride herself and the domestic help who seems to know more than she lets on. 

While sifting through clues and possible motivations, Yadav, who is edging towards middle age, must also deal with his pesky albeit well-meaning mother’s marriage goals for him.  

Trehan has so far been known as one of Bollywood’s top casting directors. The meticulousness with which he and his colleague Taran Bajaj have picked actors for even minuscule roles in RAH explains his reputation for excellence in that department. The confidence with which he has helmed this film belies the reality that it marks his directorial debut. 

Every frame of RAH, every technical aspect, has been handled with extreme care. The film plays out mostly in darkness. Open spaces late at night where fires are replicated by the reflective surfaces on which they fall and the red-tinted low-lit interiors of homes elegantly captured by DoP Pankaj Kumar set up, heighten and sustain the sense of intrigue and suspense in the narrative. It can be safely concluded that Kumar has superhuman abilities since his repertoire ranges from the visual philosophy of Ship of Theseus to the atmospherics of RAH.    

The writing by Smita Singh (who has been credited with the story, screenplay and dialogues) pays heed to even the minutiae in the life and demeanour of each character. RAH is an effective crime thriller, but goes well beyond that to also serve as a running commentary on state politics and the sociology of small-town north India. 

The most visceral statement emanating from Singh’s story is about the way society punishes women victims of sexual abuse, irrespective of class, and views them with suspicion while covering up the sins of their male predators. She also finds space for colourism, a telling reference to the double standards inherent in Hindutva politics, and a spectrum of hypocrisy where a target of prejudice may very well turn out to be prejudiced in their own way – like the man who is rejected by a woman because he is too dark-skinned for her taste, who in turn says her attire indicates that she is not as “susheel” (good, modest) as he would like his wife to be. 

“Susheel” is translated as “virginal” in the subtitles, which is an interesting interpretation of the Hindi word. It is a measure of the importance Raat Akeli Hai gives to detail that the subs have been done by no less a personage than Abhishek Chaubey (director of Dedh Ishqiya and Udta Punjab, and one of this film’s producers) along with Utsav Maitra. 

 This team clearly has an affection for language and is aware that subtitles across Indian cinemas often wreck the director’s and writer’s intent. Singh’s dialogues merit every bit of that love. 

Despite the large ensemble of characters, Singh and Trehan make each one distinctive. 

Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Jatil Yadav switches with characteristic ease from hard-as-nails policeman to a softer version of himself. 

Radhika Apte as the much-hated bride, Radha, embodies an oppressed yet defiant, despairing yet still spirited woman wronged. 

Each actor stands out in their own right, though I must say it was a pleasure to see Riya Shukla – who earlier played Swara Bhasker’s acid-tongued daughter in Nil Battey Sannata – here playing a significant part as the terrified household help. 

In his role as a senior policeman, Tigmanshu Dhulia’s natural timing seems particularly well-suited to the local flavour of the dialogues. 

Shreedhar Dubey makes himself likeable as Yadav’s gossipy deputy who personifies casual misogyny with his assumptions about who done it – a reminder that patriarchy is perpetuated not necessarily by men with horns on their heads but by the ‘nice guys’ too. 

And Ila Arun is utterly loveable as Yadav’s mother. I melted into a puddle as I heard her explain what his father meant to her. 

In the midst of so much that is good, two points about RAH are a cause for concern. Firstly, the relationship Yadav tries to build with a woman in the film is exploitative because of the unequal power equation between them, far worse than perhaps even a doctor wooing a patient or a lawyer wooing a client because when he first makes an aggressive overture towards her, he is in a position to destroy her completely. This is not to say that no man would make such a move in real life, but that this particular man’s behaviour here seems inconsistent with his characterisation until then and thereafter, and that the script does not bat an eyelid in the matter, which becomes noteworthy considering the progressiveness of the rest of the writing. 

The finale gets stretched for over 20 minutes after the big reveal, partly due to the Agatha Christie-style gathering of all the players in a single room for the detective to say his piece (which is sweet) and partly due to a needless bow to the conventional definition of happily-ever-after. The closing scene feels odd not just because it is unnecessary but also because of the lack of chemistry between the two actors and characters involved. By this time though, RAH had me completely engrossed and in a forgiving mood.

It helps that the film closes right then with one of the mood songs Sneha Khanwalkar has created for it. Khanwalkar’s soundtrack and Karan Kulkarni’s background score play a crucial role in RAH’s pensive tone. 

Raat Akeli Hai (The Night Is Alone / Lonely / Solitary) marks the advent on the Hindi film scene of a bold new voice. Here is some breaking news of the happy variety: director Honey Trehan has arrived.  

Rating: 3.5 (out of 5 stars)

Running time: 150 minutes

Photo courtesy: IMDB

REVIEW 676: SONCHIRIYA

Release date:	March 1, 2019
Director:	Abhishek Chaubey
Cast: Language:	Sushant Singh Rajput, Bhumi Pednekar, Manoj Bajpayee, Ranvir Shorey, Ashutosh Rana, Sampa Mandal, V.K. Sharma, Khushiya Hindi

“You haven’t got it?” one woman tells another, castes “are all meant to categorise men. Women are a different caste altogether, below all of them.”

In a film filled with more movement than conversations, words are used sparingly, but when they come they are on point. Women too are present in limited numbers, but the ones we encounter are prime movers in the battles being chronicled here. Writer-director Abhishek Chaubey’s Sonchiriya is a lyrical account of a gang of dacoits wandering the Chambal ravines, some of them anxious for a way out. 

Dreary, poetic and desperately sad, it is about unwritten codes of honour among society’s outliers,  about the cruelty of caste and patriarchy, and about the endlessness of violence once unleashed. “Dacoits too can be good,” says a character more than once. But this is not an effort to romanticise the outlaws in the frame so much as to highlight the self-defeating nature of social inequity in a world where men think patriarchy benefits them though it can pull them down mercilessly too. 

Deaths are the bookends between which unfolds this tale of a band of male dacoits led by Man Singh (Manoj Bajpayee) in Madhya Pradesh of the 1970s. Just once does one of these men refer to them as daaku. Otherwise, in their vocabulary they are baaghis (rebels) on the run. As they are hunted unrelentingly by the police, it becomes clear that at least some of them are trying much harder to escape their own demons than the long arm of the law.

We know nothing about their background beyond the fact that they are Thakurs, and that Man Singh and his younger associate Lakhan/Lakhna (Sushant Singh Rajput) are haunted by a sorrow that they seem unable to and unwilling to shrug off. Elsewhere in these arid lands, we hear that (the now legendary) Phoolan Devi (called Phuliya in the film and played by Sampa Mandal) is thirsting for the blood of Thakurs – but not all of them. Lakhna, it is clear, is fighting a fight he no longer believes in or takes pride in. Vakil Singh (Ranvir Shorey), for his part, does not trust Lakhna. Rounding off the primary players is the policeman Virender Gujjar (Ashutosh Rana) whose determination to clean up the Chambal seems to be as personal as it is professional.

Sonchiriya, which is written by Chaubey and Sudip Sharma, rarely misses a step. Like Chaubey’s three previous directorial ventures – Ishqiya, Dedh Ishqiya and Udta Punjab – it is rooted in the soil from which it emerges. This rootedness is reflected in every element of the film, from the dialect the characters speak (accompanied by subtitles which will hopefully give it the pan-India audience it deserves) to their clothing and concerns. This film has more depth than the more widely promoted, far flashier Udta Punjab though. And like the two Ishqiyas, it is uncompromising and unapologetic about what it has to say.

His direction of Sonchiriya is steeped in conviction. Except for perhaps three brief scenes in which the momentum is intentionally slowed down to needlessly heighten the melodrama – when a group of men realise that they have killed the wrong person/s, while a mother is telling her son his truth, and in the end between Lakhna and the titular character – not a single moment of this narrative feels out of place or unnecessary.

Chaubey’s canvas is enriched by production designer Rita Ghosh, fresh from her superb work on Nandita Das’ Manto last year, and by DoP Anuj Rakesh Dhawan’s ability to turn dust bowls into visual gold. Dhawan does not give us pretty frames here. His unsparing cinematography does nothing to lighten the impact of the harsh landscapes these characters traverse on their way to what seems like nowhere. Even the river is not prettified although it does provide some relief to the eyes. The audience is shown a lot of the violence that occurs, but not in a lascivious fashion.

The most bloody murder of the story, however, takes place off camera as one human being vents a long-burning rage against another, and sound designer Kunal Sharma, while not resorting to sensationalism, ensures that we know exactly what is going on without seeing any of it.

The ensemble cast is brimming with talent.

Bhumi Pednekar is flawless as the beleaguered woman who intrudes on the gang’s existence. With just four feature films under her belt (Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, Shubh Mangal Saavdhan and now this one), Pednekar has already emerged as one of the most versatile young actors on the Hindi film horizon.

All the grime and misery on the planet cannot camouflage Sushant Singh Rajput’s handsomeness, yet the actor ensures that what stands out is his character’s bruised and broken spirit. There are a couple of seconds here and there when Manoj Bajpayee’s facial expressions come across as exaggerated, but for the most part he is as fabulous as Man Singh as he usually is.

Commercial Hindi filmdom is either indifferent to, ignorant about or afraid of caste as a subject, as we were reminded most recently by the shameful manner in which it remade the Marathi film Sairat as Dhadak. The industry is also largely a patriarchal space, usually telling stories of men or portraying women through a restricted male gaze. Abhishek Chaubey’s new film, on the other hand, is a commentary on how, while oppressive systems crush the marginalised, the cycles of violence unleashed by dominant communities end up sweeping away everyone including the oppressors and in particular the few who wish to surrender their inherited privilege. Sonchiriya is unafraid, it is aware and it cares.

Rating (out of five stars): ****

CBFC Rating (India):	A
Running time:	146 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/sonchiriya-movie-review-sushant-singh-rajput-bhumi-pednekar-and-a-band-of-fine-artistes-deliver-aching-desolate-beauty-6175821.html

Poster courtesy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonchiriya

REVIEW 401: UDTA PUNJAB

Release date:	June 17, 2016
Director:	Abhishek Chaubey
Cast: Language:	Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Shahid Kapoor, Diljit Dosanjh, Satish Kaushik Hindi

Motherfucker, sisterfucker, cock, balls, nuts, asshole, madarchod, behenchod, fucker…

Once you get past the shock value of hearing those words in more than one language repeatedly on screen – yes, even more than in numerous Bollywood gangster flicks of the past 10-15 years – you will realise that all this is nothing more than what a visitor to many parts of north India will hear in casual conversations. It is hard to understand why the Central Board of Film Certification a.k.a. the Censor Board would get so antsy about invectives that are used more often than the definite article in real life; or why these abuses, which are uttered without beeps by various characters, are inexplicably asterisked out in subtitles in this primarily Punjabi, partly Hindi film.

Here is the actual objection that Punjab’s politicians and their Censor Board allies would have had: writer-director Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab minces no words about a fact that the state’s netas have been anxious to keep under wraps for years now. Punjab is facing a serious drug epidemic; common sense suggests it is impossible for so many addictive substances to be so easily available to so many people, without the cooperation of the police and the political class.

Now that we have got that out of the way, let us focus on the real problem with Udta Punjab. Sure it is great that Chaubey has chosen to highlight a pressing social calamity, but the erratic narrative style ultimately dilutes what should have been a hard-hitting, revelatory film, in the end reducing the tragedy of drugs and drug addiction to a farce.

“Ever since I saw her, I no longer feel the need to take cocaine. After a long time, a tune has begun playing in my head after I set eyes on her. I’ve got my mojo back.” – This, in a nutshell, is how Punjab-based musician Tommy Singh describes his reaction to a Bihari field worker.

Is this some kind of joke?

A self-destructive drug addict has been ‘cured’ of substance abuse because he saw a pretty face?

There is more in this film where that came from. The first half of Udta Punjab is consistently grim, deeply disturbing and, appropriately, almost docu-feature-like. The second half though is intermittently farcical and ultimately makes a mockery of the concerns it set out to raise.

Three threads play out simultaneously in Udta Punjab. One involves the artiste formerly known as Tejender Singh, now Tommy (Shahid Kapoor), whose talent and success are fuelled by his consumption of multiple drugs. The second revolves around the young sportswoman-turned-peasant (Alia Bhatt) who gets entrenched in the drug mafia when she tries to sell a stolen cache. The third is about Dr Preet Sahni (Kareena Kapoor Khan) who encounters assistant sub-inspector Sartaj Singh (Diljit Dosanjh) when his brother becomes her patient.

At first, Udta Punjab proves to be a well-researched, sharply observed, much-needed, no-holds-barred account of the extent to which the state is mired in drugs and drug-related corruption. Even if you think you know, it is shocking to see the extent of unscrupulousness of those willing to ruin an entire population and even their own families for financial gain.

The intricate web of powerful folk and minions involved in this conscienceless trade is gasp-inducing, to say the least. It is also unnerving to see the soul-shattering effect that drugs can have on individuals who might otherwise have been humans with dignity.

So far so good. Then though, as if another director or multiple directors have taken over, the film unravels. Udta Punjab’s Achilles heel proves to be an inexplicable compulsion to assign a romance to each major mainstream star in the cast. The acting too is surprisingly patchy.

In fact, this film might be a good case study to help students understand that fine acting is rarely possible without the right chemistry between an actor, a director and a script. This can be the only explanation for why Shahid – whose stupendous performance in Haider (2014) remains fresh in the memory – is convincing in the first half but goes all goggle-eyed and almost comical once he apparently gets over his love for coke and sets out to help a stranger; or why the usually dependable Kareena here seems not to know when to wipe the twinkle out of her eyes.

Besides, there is no spark at all between her and the man in whom she appears to develop a romantic interest. As a result, that entire blossoming ‘relationship’ is awkwardly handled and appears contrived. Their younger co-star, Alia Bhatt, comes off better for the most part.

Likewise, Amit Trivedi’s music is as pleasing to the ear as always – especially the foot-stomping title track – but every good song is not good enough to be stuffed into a film. Ikk kudi, for instance, is well sung by Shahid Mallya, nice as a standalone number but maudlin in this context and completely out of sync with Udta Punjab’s initial tone.  

It is a mystery why this film was allowed to come undone despite the tremendously gifted individuals involved and the extreme poignancy plus conviction of the first half. To watch a woman drugged into sexual submission, to hear her captors assure a potential rapist that “she is well trained” and will therefore not attack him, to witness the depths to which drug-addled brains will fall in their desperation for a fix is chilling beyond description.

After all this, then, to have a character suggest that he has recovered from his addiction because he fell for a woman is infuriatingly irresponsible; to see the film switch between heartbreak and the male protagonist’s serio-comic behaviour is confusing. 

It is hard to believe that this uneven treatment of a grave issue has come to us from the director who delivered Vidya Balan to us in all her electrifying glory in the otherwise mixed bag that was Ishqiya (2010), from the man who gave us the genteel Dedh Ishqiya (2014) starring Madhuri Dixit-Nene and Huma Qureshi.

How could you, Abhishek Chaubey?

Rating (out of five): **1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	A
Running time:	148 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/udta-punjab-review-uneven-treatment-reduces-this-film-to-a-near-farce-2840198.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udta_Punjab