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 436: MIRZYA

Release date:	October 7, 2016
Director:	Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Cast: Language:	Harshvardhan Kapoor, Saiyami Kher, Anuj Choudhry, Art Malik, Om Puri, Anjali Patil, K.K. Raina, Iteshyam, Anuja, Shourya Pratap Singh Shekhawat Hindi

Once upon a time there was a man called Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra who lived in the Enchanted Forest of Imagination and Splendour.

One day, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra decided to make a film on the Punjabi folktale of Mirza and Sahibaan, setting it in present-day Rajasthan.

It was a story of love, faith, hope and betrayal, rocks and hard places, Scylla and Charybdis, devils and deep seas. It was a story that lent itself to the kind of epic scale and magnificence that Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra was known for in the Forest and the many lands of Far Beyond.

And so Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra went about gathering the best team in the Forest for his film. He roped in Dadasaheb Phalke Award-winning stalwart Gulzar for the screenplay and lyrics.

And Gulzar did not let him down with the songs. He wrote with wistfulness, of a little boy mooning after a girl, of a woman torn between her family and her lover.

In the Village on the edge of the Forest there lived a Critic. She was filled with hope for Mirzya for she thought Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang De Basanti released in 2006 was one of the best Hindi films of the 21^st century, and though some folk in the Village said his Bhaag Milkha Bhaag in 2013 was over-wrought, she did not agree with them.

When Gulzar’s words for Ek Nadi Thi, put to tune by the formidable Shankar Ehsaan Loy, sung by the Nooran sisters and K. Mohan, rose up from the screen, a feeling of warmth enveloped the Critic. “Ek nadi thi dono kinaare / Thaam ke behti thi / Ek nadi thi… / Ek nadi thi koi kinara chhod na sakti thi” (There was a river who embraced both her banks / There was a river… / There was a river who could not leave either of her banks). A picture began to paint itself.

It was clear that Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa had poured their soul into Mirzya. The melodies, the instrumentation, the choice of voices – it was oh so beautiful.

Most beautiful of all was Daler Mehndi, whose full-bodied rendition of that evocative title track got the Critic’s pulse racing each time.

In the same Forest there lived a cinematographer called Pawel Dyllus, who bathed Mirzya’s present in burnished tones and the blazing sun, while drenching the past in a dreadful steely gray. Pawel Dyllus’ canvas was large, and every frame was a museum piece, not counting some close-ups of the lead actress Saiyami Kher in which her make-up was screaming out at the viewers – a folly indeed.

The music, the lush landscapes and shadowy interiors, Mirzya’s art design and narrative structure were designed to build up a haunting atmosphere. There was foreboding in the air. Great sorrow would befall these people – the Critic knew that, not only because everyone in the Village had read of Mirza and Sahibaan, but because she sensed it in the air of the Forest.

Mirzya was related as a fantasy fable, juxtaposing the ancient saga of Mirza and Sahibaan against the contemporary account of H.R.H. Prince Karan, his one true love Soochi – daughter of a top policeman in Rajasthan – and the stable boy Adil. There was much promise in this idea.

But Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra made a big mistake. He strayed from the Path of Golden Rules, he did not chide Gulzar for writing a screenplay with many strong pillars but no rooms, for constructing a fascinating frame with no interiors, for outlining characters that could have been interesting if only he had filled in his lines with colour and life. Perhaps that was not possible. After all, Gulzar, as the people of the Village well know, is a legend.

There were moments when the Critic thought, “Ah, this looks and sounds so good. Maybe soon the life blood will flow?” And she waited, and waited, and waited. But it did not.

No doubt Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra had aimed his film at intelligent, well-read Village dwellers. He infused it with literary references, but mostly with the words of an old English wizard called William Shakespeare. Then though, he doubted the knowledge of the Village people and felt driven to mention the names of Wizard William, Romeo and Juliet, just in case the Critic and her Village did not quite get it.

It was a film with few dialogues. In the Enchanted Forest, words are precious. Yet Mirzya squandered away its limited number of spoken lines with clunky writing. Such as when a father and a fiancé pun on the word “samaan” (property, possession, thing, stuff) to refer to the woman they love and the luggage she has brought home from her travels.

Now in the roles of Mirza and Adil, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra had cast young Harshvardhan Kapoor (son of actor Anil Kapoor, brother of Sonam Kapoor, nephew of Sridevi Kapoor and producer Boney Kapoor, cousin of Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh). Harshvardhan was a debutant so sweet of countenance, with eyes of such boyish innocence, that the Critic wanted to reach out and embrace him, and whisper, “Come child, I will protect you from this film. For it does look like you could be better employed.” Some scenes hinted at a fluid face of a million possibilities, but for some reason Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra had given him an under-written role. He had little to say, the camera rarely dwelt upon his face and in his one big moment in the film, when he filled the screen and turned around to look at a figure of treachery, he deadpanned.

Saiyami Kher fared no better playing Sahibaan, but as Soochi, she got enough space to display her smart personality and innate pizzazz. Saiyami Kher, so the Village crier said, was the granddaughter of Usha Kiran, an actress of yore, and the niece of Tanvi Azmi.

Oddly enough, the central character written with most empathy was neither of these two, but Prince Karan. And actor Anuj Choudhry stepped up to the challenge, making a mark despite the frigid film within which he found himself.

Moral of the fable: all the packaging and grandeur in the world, all those artistically writhing bodies doing a sexual dance as a backdrop to Mirza-Sahibaan and Soochi-Adil-Karan, all those pretty costumes and young actors with potential, Shankar Ehsaan Loy and Daler Mehndi, they all add up to nought if the heart of your story does not beat. 

Early on in Mirzya, a character quotes a moonstruck Romeo’s monologue on Juliet: “She speaks yet says nothing.” It is an unwittingly apt description of this film. It speaks, yet says nothing.

Ah that Wizard William, he whose works in which you will find passages relevant to every given situation all these centuries later.

The Critic thought: all is not lost, for in Harshvardhan Kapoor, Saiyami Kher and Anuj Choudhry, Mirzya has presented to us, three newcomers who may give the people of the Village great pleasure in the coming years; and forgiveness ought to be offered generously to the man who made Rang De Basanti.

So the Critic embraced that thought and slept peacefully that night, remembering that in the Village and in the Forest in every tale, they always all lived happily ever after.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	129 minutes 45 seconds

A version of this review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/mirzya-review-saiyami-kher-harshvardhan-kapoors-sweetness-is-squandered-in-a-frigid-film-3039128.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirzya_(film)

Harshvardhan Kapoor & Saiyami Kher’s photograph courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/Mirzya/