A Film a Week - In the Name of Fire / Swaha

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

“In the Name of Fire” might not be the most communicative movie, especially for the audiences outside of India. That might be the reason why it did not travel much outside of Asia, festival-wise, despite its considerable craft qualities and the aura of a serious, art house film that offers some deeper insights about the society it comes from.

Set in the state of Bihar where almost 90% of the inhabitants live in the rural areas and filmed completely in Magahi language, the plot follows the central family whose members were quite unlucky to be born into the Dalit caste. The father Phekan (Satya Ranjan) goes to a nearby town to find work, only to be exploited, cheated and beaten there. Staying home, in a hut, with their newborn baby that never stops crying, the mother Rukhia (Sonalli Sharmisstha) also has to face with prejudice and violence from the local community: she is accused of being a witch. In the town, the crematory worker (Chandra Shekhar Dutta) seeks his path to redemption and his path will eventually cross the paths of the two in existential peril.

Written by the filmmaker Abhilash Sharma (for whom this is the second movie he helmed) and the co-producer Shilpee Bhardwaj, the script resembles an adaptation of an unwritten mid-20th century realist short story about the hardships of working people who seem to be cheated by the cruel destiny from their birth on. The atmosphere of it is tense and dense, but the plotting, unfortunately, never gets and holds an actual grip on the viewers. For that reason, Sharma, who also edited the film, together with Suresh Pai, has to employ some of the tricks to attract the attention.

For instance, the filmmaker keeps the actors in a very expressive mode, although the interaction between their characters and the others is only a passing thing, which serves its purpose for a while. On the other hand, the background of the film filled with injustice and misery “shines brightly” thanks to Devandra Golatkar’s “shades of grey”-type of black and white cinematography that defies the tourist’s vision of India according to which, no matter how harsh the circumstances of life are, it always seems colourful. The abundant use of the ethnic music compiled by Devarshi, however, has a dual role here, as the interludes stretch the runtime to over 90 minutes, while it also adds to the feeling of a miserabilist tapestry.

In the end, “In the Name of Fire” seems like a social, to a point even anthropological study that tries to pose as an artsy fiction film. It is certainly well crafted, demanding watch, but the question is whether it is also a rewarding one.

A Film a Week - Myth & Pieces / Kalponik

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

We tend to see India as a single country, no matter how complicated. But even geographically, it is a sub-continent, while the diversity of its social landscape reminds us that it should be seen as a complete civilization. And, where is the whole civilization, there is a plenty of the axis of division: linguistic, religious, ethnic, class and caste. Sometimes it is quite a hard task to govern such a country and achieve some kind of balance in it.

The diversity also applies to the national cinema with different “schools” of it in various states. Coming from Kolkata, one might assume that “Myth & Pieces” (“Kalponik” in original), written and directed by Arka Mukhopadhyay, could be something along the lines of art house cinema. However, it is a mix of fairly conventional sub-genres of thriller, with an investigative, political and even symbolic mystery angles, which in theory sounds fine and dandy, especially when packed in a compact 90-something minutes format. In theory…

Mukhopadhyay takes some sweet time for exposition, introduction of characters and situation, with a hint of plotting the matter. Maithili (Satakshi Nandy) was once a promising journalist, but facing the sensationalism in her house, she decides to change her employer. She starts working for the paper supporting a seemingly progressive rising star of a politician Adhiraj Mitra (Sahidur Rahaman) who tries to improve his chances on making a splash in the upcoming elections. One of the first stories she stumbles upon is the one of a legendary lost temple served to her by the professor Shom (Janardan Ghosh) which turns to be a great hit.

However, when an old Hindu statue is found underneath the Muslim temple, the tension rises in a seemingly peaceful West Bengal town, culminating with a murder of the professor Rakshit (Rajatabha Dutta) who previously contacted Maithili in attempt to debunk Shom’s theory. Aided only by the filmmaking student Meghnad (Sudip Mukherjee) who was the last to interview Rakshit, she starts her own investigation. Also, in a different plotline, we get to follow a man named Dilip (Sayan Ghosh) who struggles to get the money needed to buy an apartment in a new building…

The thing is, the exposition part takes something like two thirds of the film before the plot even starts to take a shape, juggling with characters to develop and topics to explore. The thing is, none of the two is done in a satisfying manner, since the characters remain as given at the beginning, without much change due to their findings as the plot thickens, while the topics of the divisions and tensions within the society in India are explored only superficially. The mystery to bind the whole thing together is not strong enough to succeed doing so, effectively ending on the level of which character plays which part in the mosaic.

Production values are solid throughout, and so is the acting, but none of it raises above the level of passable. The impression is further reinforced by Mukhopadhyay’s directing that is pretty functional, “invisible” and devoid of anything resembling style. The thing is, the complicated story with such a number of characters, events and discoveries does not fit the compact format, especially in such moderate pace and without proper dynamic accents, which might be the fault of the editor Amitava Dasgupta. In the end, it seems that the final version was extracted from a much longer one and that some continuity fell a victim of that. With such plain directing, “Myth & Pieces” seems more like a two-episode pilot for a season of a TV show which would let the characters and the plot breathe and develop properly.

A Film a Week - Santosh

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Like India itself, its cinema tends to be very diverse. The cultural diversity of the country itself powers the diversity of cinematic styles and schools, while also diversity genre-wise can be noted, from Bollywood spectacles and popular action flicks via highly artistic stuff, documentaries and docu-fiction to proper genre flicks like fantasies and horrors. Genre-mixing also occurs and when it is done smartly, the results can be very interesting. In the case of “Santosh”, the genres in the mix are procedural crime thriller and a naturalist social drama with certain documentary ambitions. The film premiered at Cannes’ Un certain regard and we were lucky enough to catch it at Zagreb Film Festival.

The titular protagonist played by Shahana Goswami is a widow of a police officer who was killed on duty. Her in-laws hurry to take her back to the family she came from, having her for a “cursed witch” who was somehow responsible for their son’s death, possibly still unable to reconcile with the fact that their marriage was not an arranged one. A lucky break happens to Santosh when she goes for a “compassionate appointment” scheme through which the widows (or widowers) of the police officers fallen on duty are offered training and constable position with the paycheck on top of their partner’s pension.

She accepts it and soon enough, even though she is not highly regarded by her male colleagues, she gets some respect from the community. Pursuing a path to help an illiterate Dalit man to file a missing person report for his teenage daughter, she soon enough stumbles upon her first murder investigation. The victim is the same girl whose missing her father tried to report and the primary suspect is a Muslim youngster from the village nearby, Saleem (Arbaz Khan) who tried to seduce her. Guided by her mentor Sharma (Sunita Rajwar of the “Stree” serial), Santosh uncovers how the system divided along the lines of gender, class, caste and religion really works in contemporary rural areas of Northern India. Newsflash: the idea of justice is merely a dream, the games of power and humiliation are played constantly and “railroading” the convenient suspect is quite a common practice in the police force so defunded that it is not able to conduct a proper investigation.

“Santosh” is a feature-length fiction debut for the British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri who previously made her name with two documentaries – “I for India” (2005) and “Around India with a Movie Camera” (2018) – in which she explored the country’s reality both after and before gaining independence from the British colonial rule. The documentarian background of the filmmaker can be observed both in her script that uses a relatively simple crime-thriller-”sunny noir” plot to explore the contemporary reality in its background and in her approach to directing in which she opts for naturalism through dimly lit hand-held shots in more actiony sequences contrasted with longer and calmer observational shots that try to depict ordinary life.

Both the cinematography by Lennert Hillege and the editing of Maxime Pozzi-Garcia deserve praise, and so does Suri’s work with the actors that are kept in various registers fitting for the types and the functions of the roles they play. For instance, Shahana Goswami is beautifully subdued as the protagonist who has to stand a lot of inner turmoil at her new job, and so is Arbaz Khan as the frightened suspect, while the actors who play the characters who provide the film with the concepts and ideas rather than emotional grounding are instructed to use broader strokes, which suits Sunita Rajwar and the rest of the cast members who play the figures of authority quite fine.

However, “Santosh” does not fare that well as a genre piece since its overall energy is much calmer from what the audience expects and the dynamic accents are not as strong as they should be for such a film. On the other hand, it is hitting the mark of a socially conscious and emotionally charged drama, a character study and a morality play. The end result is an art house flick that is extremely friendly with the festival-attending audiences.

A Film a Week - The Cloud Messenger / Meghdoot

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Tragic love stories are the staple diet of every culture, mythology and civilization. Lovers themselves can be sinful or just star-crossed, but their common trait is defiance to the order represented by gods, kings and other power figures by the sheer power of love. Details may vary, but the essence remains the same, from Orpheus and Eurydice to Romeo and Juliet to Katniss and Peeta from “Hunger Games”.

The story of Jaivardhan and Tarini, the protagonists of Rahat Mahajan’s feature debut “The Cloud Messenger” (or “Meghdoot” in original) might be one such story. The film premiered at the main, Tiger Competition of IFFR.

In the ancient version told in prologue by the means close to the Yakshagana theatre, Jaivardhan (the director Mahajan plays the role himself) and Tarini (Lalita Shivani) were the “yakshas” (spirits) under the rule of the lord Kuber whose brother, the king Dashananan (Peesappilly Rajeevan) wanted Tarini to be his wife and queen. The whole thing did not end well for neither of the lovers, to put it mildly. If there are parallels to be drawn from this story to the titular lyrical poem written by Kalidasa, you are probably proficient in Sanskrit language literature. The connections to the story of the kidnapping of Rama’s wfie Sita by Ravana, the king of Lanka, from Ramayana will be made later on.

Back to the modern days, let us say the 90s, before the cell phone age, and welcome to the exclusive boarding school somewhere in the foothills of Himalaya. Jaivardhan (Ritvik Tyagi), or JV as he is called by his friends, is a sensitive young lad prone to mischiefs, which puts him in trouble with school principal who uses the colonial times rituals to maintain the military grade of discipline. But when the new girl Tarini (Ahalya Shetty) arrives to the school, he is completely smitten. Luckily, both of them were selected for and partnered-up in the photography class given by the famed and wise professor Sapru (star actor Raj Zutshi) who is probably the only person there encouraging the students to open their eyes. However, the young lovers’ happiness is under threat since the masked entity of Dashananan appears from another world to haunt and take Tarini.

The concept of reincarnation or the collision of the mythological and the “real” world could be used here to highlight the universal meaning of love, destiny and overcoming the challenges it poses. The way Mahajan directs his film, with an emphasis on the visual cues how the tradition and modernity mix, and the articular mechanics of the both worlds, is more than fitting for that kind of story. The way he steers his young actors in the desired direction is simply stellar and the attention to details (especially in the “realm” of the boarding school) is quite harrowing, while the fantasy world he imagines also leaves quite a strong impression.

In that regard, it is worth noting that Mahajan also serves as the film’s co-editor (with Beena Paul), the sole production designer and the co-cinematographer (with Anil Pingua), which allows him to control the impact of the film as a whole. Other collaborators should also be commended for their work. The mix between the traditional percussion and the modern, more gentle music on an array of instruments in the score written by Nikhel Kumar Mahajan fits perfectly, and the same can be told for the Kapila Venu’s choreography.

However, there is a bit of a problem in the department of dramaturgy, since the prologue could be regarded as a spoiler of sorts, making the film’s second act a sort of an expectation of things that are bound to happen. Ultimately, it makes sense in the third act when the realms collide, but the runtime of two and a half hours is going to be felt.

In the end, “The Cloud Messenger” is a fairly accessible film that is both rooted in the Indian tradition and open to the modern cinematic language. It is a competent, meaty debut, but perfect it is not.

A Film a Week - Stomp / Chavittu

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Chavittu Nadakam is a performance art form resembling European forms of opera and ballet that is rooted in the Indian state of Kerala and practiced by the state’s Catholic community. The language of the performance is the state’s official language (Malayalam), the actors perform the dancing and singing alongside acting, while the musical background is on various percussion instruments, but dominated by bells and drums, while the floor boards of the stage also fulfill the soundscape.

It was rarely portrayed in cinema, so the film “Chavittu” (or “Stomp”, according to its international title, for a good reason since stomping is the core part of the mechanics of the dance itself) written and directed by Rahman brothers Sajas and Shinos of “Toy Maker” (2015) and “Vasanthi” (2021) fame is something of a novelty both on the topical and on the approach level. The film premiered at the Harbour section of International Film Festival Rotterdam, where we had the chance to see it.

The brothers open the film with a wide shot of a small group of people unloading a minibus parked in front of a provincial theatre called Highness Auditorium. When the bus moves, it is revealed that the people we saw are a part of a larger group – a theatre/dance company and that they are about to perform at the mentioned venue, as it is shown with the following succession of static shots of their preparations.

From that point on, Chavittu goes in various directions. One follows the preparation process on a remote location that preceded the performance itself, the other shows the content of the play that is both folkloric and contemporary, while it differs from the usual Chavittu Nadakam Bible-related topics, while the third one covers the day of the performance and the distractions posed by people holding various official positions, since our guys are not the only ones to perform at the show. The nature of their distractions and disruptions are actually the most telling thing in the film, as they expose the nature of the still caste-dominated society.

It is not an exceptionally new thing to point out that the creative and the performance processes are not apart from the world that surrounds them, and Rahmans are not trying to re-invent the wheel here in that regard. However, their approach is actually quite new and refreshing, as it is focused on blurring the lines between the documentary and the fiction, the observation and the scripting. From that point of view, they manage to achieve a balance that feels quite organic.

The majority of the cast comes from the ranks of Little Earth School of Theatre and the guys play the double role here: they are the subjects of the observational documentary and the actors in the play, constantly balancing between the most natural of the behaviour disregarding the camera and the theatrics needed for them to do their job. The technical components of the film are also impressive, from the versatile camerawork by Mukesh Muraledharan to the gentle original guitar theme by Ajeesh Anto that stands in stark contrast with the drum-dominated score of the company’s performance to Arun Lal’s choreography. Sajas and Shinos Rahman, who serve as their own editors, blend the whole thing smoothly, making “Chavittu” quite pleasant, informative and unique viewing experience that paints the layered picture of a world that is unknown for the majority of the viewers without exoticizing it.

A Film a Week - Photograph

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

After his two attempts at the international glory with English-language movies “The Sense of an Ending” (2014) and “Our Souls at Night” (2017), Ritesh Batra is back to the territory he is most familiar with, the heart-warming Indian romance he created with his feature debut The “Lunchbox” (2013) which became a huge festival hit. His newest film, “Photograph” (2019) walks pretty much the same ground, content-, execution-, and festival distribution-wise. After its world premiere at Sundance last year and European premiere at Berlinale, it went on an extended, seemingly never-ending festival tour parallel with the wide cinema release. Better late than never, could be said for its screening at this year’s online edition of Zagreb Film Festival and the review here.

Our man Rafi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is a forty-something street photographer whose pitch to the tourists at The Gateway of India is that the photograph is an all-senses memory experience: once they see the photograph, they will remember the sounds and feel the wind, which would all be gone in the case they turn his offer down. He has a brief meet-cute moment with our girl Miloni (Sanya Malhotra) who accepts his offer, but is called before he could print it, put it into the envelope and collect the money.

Rafi makes a modest living, but dreams big, and has no intention of returning to the farmer’s life at his native village. The trouble is that he is pressured by his grandma Dadi (Farrukh Jaffar) to get married to the extent that she herself goes on the quest to find him a suitable bride. Having the extra photo of Miloni in his pocket, he decides to fend the granny off with a lie that he already has a girlfriend. The trouble is that Dadi wants to meet her in person, and, with the help of a gigantic billboard with a familiar face on it, he sets on the successful quest to find her in an 18-million-people city of Mumbai. It turns out that she is also pressured by her parents to make a career in accounting and to continue studies in the US, finding a suitable husband beforehand, so Rafi might seem like a way out for her, too.

What ensues is a gentle romantic (not necessarily “love”) story between the two, with a variety of class-, caste- and religion politics of Mumbai and India. The worlds of the two “lovers” could not be more apart. He is a poor Muslim from a rural area, she is a bourgeois urban Hindu girl. Their romance seems impossible right from the start, but their need to change their lives guided by the rigid structures is equally strong.

The treatment of the romance might be too soft and gentle, but that is Batra’s style. “Photograph” seems naive, almost fairy-tale-like and the social differences aspect is also pretty tamed. One could argue that Batra has found the formula how to present his country in a way that is universally understandable, somewhat simplified, but devoid of the unnecessary exoticism. It might seem a bit too safe, but it suits the purpose.

The same could be said for his functional directing that is pretty much by the book. He is at his best when it comes to the approach to the actors makes both of the leads shine in their roles, with just the right blend of the underplayed, gentle and largely silent expressiveness on their faces he captures in the plenty of close-ups. The character of Dadi is a much needed comic relief, and Jaffar plays her spot on, while the character of Miloni’s professor played by Jim Sarbh serves to hint some darker undertones like the abuse of power and status.

Batra’s films are always beautiful to look at, perfectly designed (kudos to Shruti Gupte and Niharika Bhasin, who handled the production- and costume design, respectively) for the purpose of his inherent romanticism, and the execution here is just stellar, thanks to the camerawork by Tim Gillis and Ben Kutchins. John F. Lyons should also be commended for his smooth editing work, making “Photograph” a thoroughly beautiful, heart-warming viewing experience, despite being quite naive and predictable on the narrative level.