REVIEW 781: CHOKED

Release date:	June 5, 2020
Director:	Anurag Kashyap
Cast:	Saiyami Kher, Roshan Mathew, Parthveer Shukla, Amruta Subhash, Rajshri Deshpande, Upendra Limaye
Language:	Hindi

Sarita Pillai nee Sahastrabuddhe’s life mirrors the humdrum lives of millions of middle-class Indian women. She wakes up every morning, cooks, prepares her kid for school, sends him off before heading to her own office in teeming Mumbai where she spends her day in mechanical, emotionless toil as a bank teller before returning home to cook, serve her kid and husband Sushant, admonish the latter for being a layabout, clean up and sleep. 

Forward to the next day. Wake up. Repeat. Sleep. And the next. And the next. Wake up. Repeat. Sleep. Wake up. Repeat. Sleep. 

Her listless existence and her evident disinterest in Sushant are punctuated occasionally by lively kitty parties with women in the neighbourhood who revel in gossip, including about members of their own group. 

We know from the start that there is and will be more to Sarita, heroine of director Anurag Kashyap’s Choked: Paisa Bolta Hai (Money Talks) that is streaming on Netflix from today. We know we can expect more than that surface mundaneness for two reasons: first, the film’s smartly executed prologue indicates some hanky-panky with money; and second, hints are dropped early on about an event in the past from where her marriage went downhill. 

Sushant for his part has more spark and appears to have more going for him than she does although he does nothing. He hangs around contributing zilch to the housework, casually plays his guitar at home and plays carrom with friends in the building. Sarita’s tetchiness towards him inexplicably does little to dampen his affection for her or dull the twinkle in his eyes, but it also does not enthuse him enough to lift a finger to share her burden around the house. 

Then one day, as the trailer has already revealed, Sarita unexpectedly comes across a stash of cash and for the first time in the film we see her face come alive. 

Choked is about what she does with that secret horde, and through that adventure it tells the story of a life stuck in a rut, a relationship at the edge of an abyss, greed and corruption in the era of demonetisation. 

At first Choked is intriguing. The manner in which Kashyap portrays Sarita’s boredom and sense of hopelessness in her role as wife and home manager is striking. Her act of latching a door and switching off a light night after night after night before going to bed is used to remarkable effect to underline the repetitiveness of her routine and the monotony that domesticity can bring. 

Sarita’s empty eyes and irritability when contrasted with Sushant’s easygoing nature and their son’s charm allude to a background that must have been far more interesting than her current busy yet godawfully drowsy routine. 

Besides the lead trio of Choked are a good fit. Sarita is played by Saiyami Kher who had the misfortune of making her Bollywood debut with Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s worst film till date, Mirzya (2016), but managed to reveal her innate charisma even in that dismal enterprise. The young actor has an impressive personality and speaking eyes. In the role of Sushant is the attractive stage and Mollywood artist Roshan Mathew whose brief filmography includes an aching portrayal of a man in love with a man in a conservative society in Geetu Mohandas’s otherwise middling Moothon. And Parthveer Shukla who plays their son is a little fireball of darlingness without the irritating precociousness that so many directors seem to demand of their child actors. 

Once the nuts and bolts of their relationship and the neighbourhood dynamics are established though, despite a series of twists and turns right till the end, the narrative is curiously lacking in energy. 

Sarita and Sushant’s back story, from which the title Choked is drawn, is not quite as fascinating as it is made out to be. His subsequent irresponsible behaviour and the progression of their equation are unconvincing. 

Kashyap and writer Nihit Bhave appear to be making a point about Narendra Modi’s decision in 2016 to demonetise select Indian currency notes – the point being that the corrupt and the powerful found their way around it, while ordinary citizens suffered. However, they seem to have internalised it so much, they say what they seem to want to say so hesitantly and in such a roundabout, meandering manner, that Choked almost comes across as praise for demonetisation, a measure that has had a  disastrous impact on the Indian economy. There is even a song and dance featuring the hero celebrating demonetisation that is placed prominently in the narrative. The collective effect of these elements sadly dilutes the impact of the cheeky song that plays with the rolling credits in the end. If Choked is intended as a sarcastic critique, it depends too heavily on the viewer being indulgent towards the director, being aware of his politics and off-screen stances and having studied the country’s reaction to the present prime minister.

And no ya, the play on “choked” does not work either. 

What does work is the constant flow of dialogues between languages in the way they naturally might in the Mumbai home of a couple in a mixed marriage. although Mathew swallows some of his lines as a result of which I often could not make out what Sushant was saying in his mother tongue. Of course a lot can be forgiven because he is cute. Ironically, his Hindi diction is excellent, and comes as a package with a delightful trace of a Malayalam accent. The precise way in which he says “contracts” and pronounces “L” or the way she pronounces “D” are fun to hear because their accents are not being caricatured. 

The usually reliable Amruta Subhash is inconsistent though – warm and hilarious in parts, but in one passage, surprisingly hammy.

There are a couple of standout scenes such as the one in which Sarita and Sushant fight in bed with their kid lying asleep between them and another involving the couple, a kitchen drain and top-notch sound design by Gautam Nair. The construction of both scenes is vintage Kashyap, as is the mischievous closing song.

What is not vintage Kashyap is the lack of clarity and sharpness in what he seems to be saying about demonetisation and achhe din. 

And exactly what is the point in showing us a lazy jerk of a husband who never does any work at home, is inconsiderate to his wife but is somehow presented as a sweetheart, is made to sound at one point as though he is willing to do anything for her but oh how unfair is she, and in the end gets to save the day? 

Kashyap’s last two breathtakingly good films were Mukkabaaz and Raman Raghav 2.0. Choked wants to say a lot, but is not even as hard-hitting or entertaining as his tweets.

Rating (out of 5 stars): 2

Running time:

114 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/choked-movie-review-anurag-kashyaps-demonetisation-saga-is-curiously-hesitant-and-dull-8450691.html

Poster courtesy: IMDB

REVIEW 588: S DURGA

Release date:	Kerala: March 23, 2018 Delhi: April 6, 2018
Director:	Sanal Kumar Sashidharan
Cast: Language:	Rajshri Deshpande, Kannan Nayar, Vedh, Sujeesh K.S., Arunsol, Bilas Nair, Nisthar Ahamed, Baiju Netto  Malayalam

In terms of conventional storyline, this is all there is to S Durga: a man and woman on a lonely road in Kerala get a lift from two menacing creeps.

Yet, in expanding that one sentence into a big-screen feature, Sanal Kumar Sashidharan serves up a universe of meaning that tears the mask off the dual-purpose woman-as-goddess trope that patriarchy holds out to women as a carrot and, simultaneously, stick.

Durga in this film is both the ordinary woman on the street and the mighty deity of the Hindu pantheon. She is the creature that society seeks to subjugate even while it worships her fearsome namesake in temples.

When we first meet the human Durga of this tale (played by Rajshri Deshpande), she is standing by a deserted road, waiting. From her body language, even from a distance, you can see that she is anxious. Her male friend Kabeer (Kannan Nayar) arrives, they set off walking towards the railway station, and shortly thereafter hitch a ride from a passing van.

What follows is one of the most bizarre games ever played on film. The men in the van taunt Durga and Kabeer, make salacious insinuations about their relationship, bully and terrorise them in various ways, yet continuously claim that they are concerned about their safety. Even as they prepare to pounce on the protagonist, they insist on addressing her as “Chechi” and repeatedly warn her of the dangers outside their vehicle.

It is a sport that is at once weird and fascinating, a frighteningly symbolic depiction of the protector-cum-predator role that men – and female allies of patriarchy – play in the lives of women. Durga and Kabeer’s claustrophobia in that van is almost palpable. The men troubling them are another avatar of the khap panchayat issuing directives to curb women, purportedly to save us from marauding men; the husband who will not tolerate a stranger eyeing his wife but thinks nothing of raping her himself day after day. 

Game-playing is a device Sashidharan seems to favour. In his last film, Ozhivudivasathe Kali (An Off-Day Game), a group of men on a break in a forest lodge hold a little contest among themselves that reeks of their patriarchal, caste and class prejudices. A woman escapes their clutches by the skin of her teeth, but their match has fatal consequences for another person on the scene.

In S Durga, we do not actually see the men physically molesting Durga, but the film is designed to fill us with a sense of foreboding on her behalf – an unsettling feeling that rears its head the second we see her standing alone at night on that desolate street, a feeling women know all too well.

Parallel to Durga and Kabeer’s journey, a religious procession unfolds in the film. Even before we meet these two, we are shown a tableau bearing a statue of a demon-slaying avatar of Goddess Shakti. Around her, a procession of live men offer up their bodies for torture. They pierce spears through their mouths and dangle from hooks passed through their skin.

These religious devotees are relayed to us unrelentingly, in documentary style, for almost 10 minutes at the start of S Durga. It is as difficult to watch them as it is to see the men in the van doing a dance of intimidation around Durga and Kabeer.

The divine Shakti is known in her multiple manifestations as Durga, Kali, Bhadrakali, Parvathi and more. Even as the pageant in the film kicks off, a male worshipper briefly harasses a woman bystander. His action is so fleeting and seemingly jestful, that you will miss it if you blink an eye. It is one of many telling moments in this multi-layered film.

S Durga’s overt messaging is about the hypocrisy of men who will pay tribute to a mythical female being even as they suppress and assault her mortal equivalents. For all her legendary ferocity, Durga in that parade and in houses of worship is but a statue that does not inconvenience earthly males in the way assertive, rights-conscious, articulate earthly females do.

Sashidharan’s is an all-encompassing feminism that alerts us to the perils of patriarchy for uncooperative men, and recognises this system as a sub-set of all marginalisation. A solitary Durga would have drawn attention because it is deemed unacceptable for her to be on her own, but here in S Durga she is judged for being with a man, she is also judged for her background and his religious identity.

Her name is Hindu. Her speech suggests that she is a north Indian, which in south India immediately attracts another form of othering. His name implies that he is Muslim, which brings up another volley of prejudice. No one says the ugly words “love jihad” but it hangs thick in the air.

(Possible spoilers ahead)

Kabeer initially introduces himself by the Hindu name Kannan to the occupants of the van – an instinctive self-protection mechanism adopted by many minorities, but most especially by Muslims in a contemporary world engulfed by Islamophobia.

The most poignant commentary on the helplessness of persecuted communities comes from a scene in which two householders hear a hubbub and step out of their gates to find out what is going on, see Durga and Kabeer surrounded in the distance, and quietly get back inside.

This is a film that should compel even the most sensitive viewers among us to introspect because, without wanting to, we might find ourselves getting frustrated with Durga and Kabeer, and unwittingly asking questions that victim-blamers always ask. Why on earth did you get into that vehicle? Get out. Don’t get out. Can you not see how treacherous that road is? If you must elope, must you do so at this hour? Go to the police. Oh wait, don’t.

Here’s the thing: the road, the van, the home, the police station – when each of these spaces is fraught with risks for women and inter-community couples, when those who are not active participants in injustice choose to be silent spectators, where are they/we to go?

My one problem with the film is its sound design. I realise it is meant to be an accurate representation of a highway with all its accompanying sounds, but the strain on the ears  becomes too much in places as we struggle to hear whispers vying with loud music and passing vehicles. That said, S Durga is compelling despite this challenge. That it was made without a written script makes it even more admirable.

In case you missed the headlines it has earned so far, for the record, S Durga is the film formerly known as Sexy Durga, which Smriti Irani’s Information and Broadcasting Ministry did cartwheels to axe from IFFI last year. After a series of ups and downs – awards in India and abroad, clashes with the Ministry and the Central Board of Film Certification, and a favourable intervention by the Kerala High Court – it was finally released in mainstream theatres in Kerala last month and has come to halls outside the state this week.

Although the sarkar and the Board claimed that the title Sexy Durga would hurt Hindu sentiments, a viewing of the film reveals their more likely, unstated concerns. S Durga is not just an unnerving commentary on patriarchy, it is a cutting indictment of a society and establishment that perpetuate, participate in or unprotestingly accept all forms of social prejudice.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	89 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/s-durga-movie-review-a-chilling-expose-of-patriarchys-woman-as-goddess-trope-4424355.html

Related article by Anna M.M. Vetticad: Sexy Durga or S Durga? How the government’s reaction proves the verypoint the film makes

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