REVIEW 641: SUI DHAAGA

Release date:	September 28, 2018
Director:	Sharat Katariya
Cast: Language:	Anushka Sharma, Varun Dhawan, Raghubir Yadav, Namit Das, Yamini Das, Sawan Tank, Manukriti Pahwa Hindi

If you are a halfway decent soul, chances are you are a sucker for the underdog. Sharat Katariya’s Sui  Dhaaga (Needle and Thread) - Made in India is designed to touch that chord in us humans that makes sports fans sometimes cheer for a dark horse even when she is on a rival team or from another nation.

This is the story of Mamta (Anushka Sharma) and Mauji (Varun Dhawan), a young wife and husband belonging to a community of artisans who have over a couple of generations gradually turned their backs on their inherited trade – tailoring, embroidery, block printing and other work involving garments and fabric – since the income from these is barely sufficient for their sustenance. Like Ved in Imtiaz Ali’s Tamasha (2015), though in a contrasting class setting, Mauji is pushed by his father to turn his back on a profession that his heart is set on. Here however, unlike in Ved’s case, the parent’s goal for his child is not wealth but survival even if it means being treated like a chattel by his employer.

Mamta, though, wants more than just money for herself and her husband. She wants self-respect. She also believes that his tailoring skills could translate into a comfortable life for them, if only he would believe in himself.

The film then is about the pair’s joint struggles to become self-sufficient by turning his talent into a profitable venture in the big city and to bring a smile to his well-intentioned but cynical father’s face.

This is director Sharat Katariya’s third film, his first being the well-meant but forgettable 10 ML Love and the second the just-as-unforgettable Dum Laga Ke Haisha, one of 2015’s best from Bollywood. It is hard to miss the thematic sisterhood between Dum Laga Ke Haisha and Sui Dhaaga which is perhaps a reflection of Katariya’s worldview, his desire/willingness to see marriage as a relationship of equals, and his ability to write a strong woman without dipping into Bollywood’s lately developed clichéd interpretation of feminine strength seen most recently in Anurag Kashyap’s Manmarziyaan.

Unlike these stereotypical women, Mamta never shouts and does not abuse – imagine that, Bollywood, this kind of strong woman exists! In fact in some senses she is painfully conventional, seeing the kitchen as her wifely duty and earning money as his. Yet she is unconventional as hell in the way she inspires and encourages him to dream for himself, and even more so when, as life saunters along, she starts dreaming dreams for herself too.

Sui Dhaaga’s Mauji is very different from Dum Laga Ke Haisha’s Prem. Mauji is not dispirited and broken, he is an eternal optimist whose constant refrain even through trying times is “sab badhiya hai” (all is well). If he allows himself to be treated poorly by his boss at first it is because he is misguided into considering that the practical choice to make, not because he lacks a sense of self-worth. Crucially, unlike Prem, Mauji treats his wife with respect right from the start although it takes a while for their relationship to transition from a formal footing to fondness and finally love.

Anushka Sharma gets a rare chance to display her versatility in this film (and to act with a hero who is not old enough to be her Daddy). Her Mamta is a calm, almost sedate woman, a far cry from the bubbly and/or overtly fiery characters that have dominated her career so far. She has been good in all those films, but it is nice to see a director investing his  confidence in her with this vastly different role. She returns the favour with compound interest and a heartwarming performance.

Varun Dhawan is sweet as Mauji. The comic timing that has been his calling card since his debut is well-tapped by Katariya here too, but in a more underplayed fashion than in his blockbuster comedies. Although he does not manage to subordinate his own personality to this role in quite the way he did in Shoojit Sircar’s October earlier this year, Dhawan is still consistently engaging as Mauji.

The supporting cast are all unequivocally excellent.

Katariya’s screenplay is packed with gentle comedy and warmth and many unspoken words. The most telling moment in the film comes in a scene in which Mamta is rushing along behind Mauji, Anil Mehta’s camera staying focused on their feet while she quickly catches up with him and they walk together, side by side. It reminded me of a beloved scene in a beloved film from long ago – the confidence in Arati’s stride in the closing scene of Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar. Mehta is back at their feet in another scene when he, physically constrained, needs her assistance with the sewing machine.

The  camerawork in Sui Dhaaga is an important contributor to the endearing chemistry between the two characters and the statement about their teamwork that Katariya seeks to make.

If the writing wavers, it is towards the end when the people of Mamta and Mauji’s world are parachuted into a high-society urban crowd. (Possible spoiler alert) Here and here alone, Katariya’s tone falters, and he seems unsure about how to portray the culture shock that basti dwellers would inevitably experience on their first visit to a Page 3 party or the green room at a fashion show. The effort not to be patronising to the ‘little people’ is clearly a strain, and shows up for instance in the possibly unwitting cutesification of a bunch of country bumpkins peeping through a barrier to watch models in various stages of undress.

Besides, would an old, traditional Indian couple suddenly feel comfortable enough to hold hands in public on a stage merely because of the change in environment? And would a woman who is habituated to traditional Indian attire complete with pallu-covered head 24x7 suddenly design a Westernised gown with a dipping neckline for herself? I doubt it.

(Spoiler alert ends)

The final half hour or so of Sui Dhaaga is a departure from the realism of the rest of the film and enters a fantasy realm that commercial Bollywood tends to prefer. it also fails to convincingly capture Mauji and Mamta’s rather dramatic overnight evolution from gifted artisans to sophisticated designers. This portion is what gives the film an uneven feel, but the trip till then is so rewarding, so amusing, so steeped in tenderness, affection for the characters and positivity that it makes the ride with Mamta, Mauji and their charmingly eccentric family and friends completely worth it.

PS: Sui Dhaaga was shown with English subtitles in the Delhi hall where I watched it. This is uncommon for a Hindi film yet an important step towards bringing our cinema to the hearing impaired.

Rating (out of five stars): ***

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	122 minutes 29 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/sui-dhaaga-movie-review-anushka-sharma-varun-dhawan-are-sweet-in-this-rallying-cry-for-self-sufficiency-and-self-respect-5282661.html

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

REVIEW 527: NEWTON

Release date:	September 22, 2017
Director:	Amit V. Masurkar
Cast: Language:	Rajkummar Rao, Pankaj Tripathi, Anjali Patil, Raghubir Yadav, Danish Husain, Mukesh Prajapati, Krishna Singh Bisht, Pistak Gond, Sanjay Mishra Hindi (with some Gondi dialogues)

                                                                                                                   

“Do you know what your problem is?” a veteran election instructor asks a newbie.

The youngster replies: “My honesty?”

“No,” says the older gentleman, “your problem is your pride in your honesty.”

His point is pretty straightforward, as he continues: Don’t get so hung up on how clean you are, just do your work one step at a time, one day at a time, and in time the country will take care of itself. Read: do not let your ego cause you to obsess to such an extent about your giant role in the big picture, that you forget the old dictum about little drops making the ocean.

The elderly character played by Sanjay Mishra does not appear in the film beyond this conversation he has with the protagonist, but his words put in a nutshell the premise of Newton. Writer-director Amit V. Masurkar’s sophomore venture is the story of a rookie sarkari afsar determined to conduct a free and fair election in a remote, forested Chhattisgarh polling station to which he has been assigned as presiding officer. Newton Kumar (Rajkummar Rao) is a portrait in youthful earnestness. He is inexperienced and innocent enough – some may say naïve – to be startled at the opposition to his efforts by those within the establishment.

His companions on that journey into a Naxalite-ridden conflict zone where everyone is too afraid or too skeptical to vote are senior policeman Atma Singh (Pankaj Tripathi), a local booth level officer Malko Netam (Anjali Patil), an official of indifferent health called Loknath (Raghubir Yadav), and a bunch of cops who are on duty to guard them.

What you see in this mix are a conscientious soul, a corrupt cynic, a woman doing her job while being resigned to her people’s fate, an old man resigned to the harshness of a reality he does little to change and a satellite group flowing with the tide. It takes all kinds to make the world, it takes just one you, me or Newton to be the change we want to see in that world.

Hindi cinema has for long more or less ignored the existence of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in our society, with most films being centred around upper-caste, north Indian, Hindu men. Stories of Dalits and women have usually been told by art filmmakers, and that too in weepie form. When Dalits have appeared in mainstream ventures, they have usually been supporting players and victims with no agency, uplifted by kind Brahmin and Kshatriya men. In the matter of caste representation, southern Indian cinema – though far from perfect – is head and shoulders above the north, with Dr Biju’s thoughtful Malayalam film Kaadu Pookunna Neram just this year taking us deep into tribal territory. Marathi cinema too scores high on this front with recent years bringing us the offbeat genius of Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court (2015) and Nagraj Manjule’s commercially conventional yet thematically groundbreaking Sairat (2016).

Masurkar razes multiple Hindi film clichés to the ground in Newton by resorting to low-key black comedy to tell a tale of Adivasis being pulled in different directions by the police and Naxalites on election day, by making an Adivasi – that too a woman – one of the agents of change in the film, and by conceiving Newton as a man of indeterminate caste, even if clearly not an Adivasi himself.

Newton’s story has been credited to Masurkar, the screenplay and dialogues to him and Mayank Tewari. Together, they have managed to keep their tone light throughout, while never once making light of the unnerving situations before us.

Crucial to their effort is the casting, and the fact that a large part of the film is shot on location in the jungles of Chhattisgarh. Casting directors Romil Modi and Tejas Thakkar found many of their artistes in the very region the story inhabits. This explains why, thankfully, nobody is self-consciously ‘playing poor’ or ‘playing tribal’. Of the leads, Rajkummar Rao, Anjali Patil and Raghubir Yadav live up to their track record by delivering immersive performances, with each one lending an endearing touch to the characters they play. (As an aside, it must be said that Patil’s deliberately deglamourised styling in each of the films I have seen her in so far has failed to camouflage her great beauty. She is a stunner.)

To be a scene-stealer in an assembly of such immense talent seems impossible, yet somehow Pankaj Tripathi achieves that. This is an artiste who values our time and makes every second, every flicker of an eyelash count. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the scene in which Atma Singh is first introduced to Newton Kumar. By then, the latter’s name has already been a butt of many jokes. Atma does not offer a wisecrack, but with an expression so fleeting that you might miss it if you blink an eye at that moment, he wordlessly lets us – and Newton – know that he has noticed, he is taken aback and amused, but he does not care enough to do anything more. Now that he has delivered back to back brilliance in Anaarkali of Aarah, Gurgaon, Bareilly Ki Barfi and Newton, it can be safely said that 2017 is turning out to be The Year of The Tripathi.

Good camerawork and editing are an inextricable part of every good performance – this fact is exemplified by a scene in which Atma sits primly, wearing a floppy hat, and across a large vacant plot of land, observes Newton who stands at the door of the polling station. Atma’s posture, evident even in an extreme long shot where his face is a blur, Atma’s tininess in Newton’s eyes from that distance, and the pace of the cuts going back and forth between them had the combined effect of causing me to giggle, despite the awareness that Newton is disheartened at that point. A salaam here and for the flow of the rest of the narrative to cinematographer Swapnil S. Sonawane and editor Shweta Venkat Mathew.

Masurkar made his directorial debut with the laugh-so-much-that-you-might-die Sulemani Keeda in 2014, which sadly did not get the public attention it deserved. With his second film, it is clear that intelligently used humour is his weapon of choice, irrespective of the battle at hand. It is not often that an Indian filmmaker takes to comedy in a setting this dismal – Masurkar and his co-writer do, without being condescending or trivialising the almost depressing circumstances it chronicles in lands far beyond the India most of us are exposed to.

There is so much that Newton alludes to – the exploitation of tribals by politicians, the ignorance of ‘mainstream’ society, the constraints faced by honest government servants, the apathy or corruption that these constraints trigger even in those not naturally inclined to evil, language politics (I challenge anyone who claims that Hindi is the language of north India as a whole, to decipher the smattering of Gondi dialogues in the film without the help of a translator), the dubious efficacy of all violence (including violence that claims to have noble goals). Yet the film is not a PhD thesis nor is it all bleak. With his emphasis on the almost Darwinian significance of the lone soldier in human civilisation, Masurkar snatches optimism from the jaws of pessimism.

This is a film designed to give us hope that might even be deemed ridiculous in the face of the challenges before India’s many Newtons. One theory is that hope is a compulsion, a choice some of us make to maintain our sanity; the other is that human history bears witness to the value of being that drop in the ocean. In the words of a song from this film (music: Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor, lyrics: Varun Grover): “Manzil door thhi / Dheemi chaal thhi / Udti dhool mein / Aankhen laal thhi / Chalte chalte khud rasta mudh gaya / Tujhko dekh ke panchhi udh gaya.” (The road was long, your pace slow, your eyes reddening with the flying dust. As you walked, the path turned, and at the sight of you, the bird took flight.)

Newton’s music wafts so gently in and out of the narrative, that you almost do not notice when it is not there. When it is though, it makes its presence felt without rubbing itself in our faces.

Newton was premiered early this year at the Berlin Film Festival where it won a top award. The cleverness of Masurkar’s film is that it is designed to appeal to audiences beyond the already converted and beyond the artistically inclined fest circuit.

It takes us to a region rarely explored by Bollywood, and to a scenario so bizarre that as viewers we are left with just three options: laugh, cry or be furious. Option 4: all the above combined.

If you do watch this film, I strongly suggest that you stay till the very last credit has rolled off the screen. You do not want to deprive yourself of the pleasure of listening to the closing song Kar, in which lyricist Irshad Kamil writes: “…Paas pados mein kya banta hai / Kya hai masala kya hai tel / Tune isse kya lena hai? / Raajneeti ki shop hai, mitron / Sabhi emotion hote sale / Border pe apni sena hai / Tu Twitter pe chhod missile / Subah baitth aur shaam kar / Dil bola / Dil bola / Dil bola apna kaam kar / Chal tu apna kaam kar.” (Roughly: Why bother with what’s cooking in the neighbour’s house? In the business of politics, my friend, every emotion is for sale. Our Army is on the border, but you launch missiles day and night on Twitter. Still, my heart says, focus on your job. Come, play your part.)

Mitron, the world will take care of itself, as long as you do your bit.

I love Newton. I do, I do.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	106 minutes 27 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/newton-movie-review-rajkummar-rao-pankaj-tripathi-anjali-patil-shine-in-a-dazzlingly-low-key-dramedy-4059425.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/drishyamfilms/