[Might contain spoilers, many of them.]
There are films one wants to love because they are brave, especially in an environment not conducive to brave cinema. But the dilemma that I often find myself in is that these films are also flawed at the narrative level, thereby leaving me with mixed feelings. On the surface, these films look groundbreaking; we expect them to shake us, to start a debate, but they don’t. A very recent example is Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab, a compelling if somewhat underwhelming attempt at capturing a state’s war on drugs. While being noteworthy for tackling a weighty issue in a mainstream Hindi film, the simplistic treatment of its subject was frustrating. But I digress.
Shlok Sharma’s feature film debut Haraamkhor falls into this category. Sharma goes for risqué content here, choosing substance over style, and offers, in parts, a fantastic film. In parts. Because there’s too much unevenness in it to break new cinematic ground. Maybe it’s deliberate, the tonal shifts; it switches between dark comedy and drama, never settling into either genre, and it does take some getting used to. However, once we do, it begins to grow on us.
But even when the film occasionally falters, there is much to admire here; first, its fearlessness. Sharma's film doesn't just toe tricky waters but dives into them spectacularly. In the riveting opening hour of Haraamkhor, we watch with growing discomfort how the fifteen-year-old Sandhya becomes infatuated with her older married teacher. She's had a rough childhood; her mother abandoned her when she was a toddler, and her father, a police inspector, hardly has time for her. She discovers that he's secretly having an affair. The teacher, Shyam, a smooth-talking and often volatile sexual predator, fulfills the void in her life. He offers her an emotional bond, something that nobody has ever offered her. He molests her briefly when she spends a night at his place. Then, we see her slip. In a memorable scene, she asks him playfully if he's the father figure in her life. She lays it down gently; she wants to see how he reacts. He answers, just as playfully, with a 'no'. It's a scene that establishes the nature of the relationship they share: they subtly express a romantic interest in each other for the first time without saying it out loud.
On the side, a younger boy, Kamal, has fallen for her as well. He wants to pursue her aggressively but is unable to. He's shy and inexperienced in the matters of love. His friend, Mintu, his chief consultant on romantic relationships, advises him to do a lot of ridiculous things if he wants to 'get married' to her. These portions are where Haraamkhor draws much of its humor from. The two boys make a charming pair. We want to see more of them, but the focus is firmly on how the platonic teacher-student relationship develops into a sexual one. Sharma treads carefully here. His handling of this development is particularly delicate. We see how the discovery that her father is having an affair drives her into the arms of her teacher, who gently coaxes her into taking the plunge. She does it to secretly get back at her father; he, because he wants to.
In the first half, this plucky premise is handled wonderfully, determinedly avoiding the melodrama that could have attached itself to some of the developments. While the exchanges between the characters are sharply written, a more important problem plagues the film: the characters are extremely underdeveloped. We begin to understand Sandhya slowly, but the others are overlooked. We aren’t given enough to connect with them emotionally. This particular flaw results in the film's climax being unaffecting when it should have been devastating. It feels out of place; I am trying to understand why the film had to end that way. It certainly doesn’t justify its denouement. Furthermore, it doesn’t help that the build-up to the climax is careless. Far too much goes unexplored. For example, when Shyam’s wife discovers his infidelity and leaves him, it doesn’t have a strong effect on him. We don’t see much of her after that. It could have been turned into a critical moment that could have given us a glimpse into the mind of Shyam, but this opportunity is passed to examine how Sandhya warms up to her father’s love interest. That, clearly, is a significant moment in the film, but a lot is sacrificed to make room for it.
The performances are uniformly impressive. There is a very specific character, as complex as any, that Nawazuddin Siddiqui excels at playing: an oily, smart-alecky thug who can slip out of any conundrum, because he knows exactly what people's weaknesses are, and he exploits them to his advantage. He doesn't wear his character's evilness on his sleeve; he brings pathos to this role, and makes us believe that though he – the character – is fundamentally evil, he's still capable of being human. It’s the kind of effort he puts into fleshing this character out that puts him in a class of his own.
This time, though, he finds a match in Mohammad Samad, the little marvel who plays Mintu. His performances in Haraamkhor and 2011’s Gattu confirm that he is a natural. He has an impish charm, a disarming smile, and though he’s sidelined here for the most part, he finds a way to be the scene-stealer that he is. We leave with memories of not Sandhya or Shyam or even Kamal, but Mintu. It takes an actor of prodigious talent to pull this off.
In the end, Haraamkhor is a commendable effort. What's unfortunate is that it settles for ‘commendable’ when a more appropriate adjective, considering the talent that went into making it, could have been ‘great’.
(Not For Reproduction)
There are films one wants to love because they are brave, especially in an environment not conducive to brave cinema. But the dilemma that I often find myself in is that these films are also flawed at the narrative level, thereby leaving me with mixed feelings. On the surface, these films look groundbreaking; we expect them to shake us, to start a debate, but they don’t. A very recent example is Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab, a compelling if somewhat underwhelming attempt at capturing a state’s war on drugs. While being noteworthy for tackling a weighty issue in a mainstream Hindi film, the simplistic treatment of its subject was frustrating. But I digress.
Shlok Sharma’s feature film debut Haraamkhor falls into this category. Sharma goes for risqué content here, choosing substance over style, and offers, in parts, a fantastic film. In parts. Because there’s too much unevenness in it to break new cinematic ground. Maybe it’s deliberate, the tonal shifts; it switches between dark comedy and drama, never settling into either genre, and it does take some getting used to. However, once we do, it begins to grow on us.
But even when the film occasionally falters, there is much to admire here; first, its fearlessness. Sharma's film doesn't just toe tricky waters but dives into them spectacularly. In the riveting opening hour of Haraamkhor, we watch with growing discomfort how the fifteen-year-old Sandhya becomes infatuated with her older married teacher. She's had a rough childhood; her mother abandoned her when she was a toddler, and her father, a police inspector, hardly has time for her. She discovers that he's secretly having an affair. The teacher, Shyam, a smooth-talking and often volatile sexual predator, fulfills the void in her life. He offers her an emotional bond, something that nobody has ever offered her. He molests her briefly when she spends a night at his place. Then, we see her slip. In a memorable scene, she asks him playfully if he's the father figure in her life. She lays it down gently; she wants to see how he reacts. He answers, just as playfully, with a 'no'. It's a scene that establishes the nature of the relationship they share: they subtly express a romantic interest in each other for the first time without saying it out loud.
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| Image source: www.hindustantimes.com |
On the side, a younger boy, Kamal, has fallen for her as well. He wants to pursue her aggressively but is unable to. He's shy and inexperienced in the matters of love. His friend, Mintu, his chief consultant on romantic relationships, advises him to do a lot of ridiculous things if he wants to 'get married' to her. These portions are where Haraamkhor draws much of its humor from. The two boys make a charming pair. We want to see more of them, but the focus is firmly on how the platonic teacher-student relationship develops into a sexual one. Sharma treads carefully here. His handling of this development is particularly delicate. We see how the discovery that her father is having an affair drives her into the arms of her teacher, who gently coaxes her into taking the plunge. She does it to secretly get back at her father; he, because he wants to.
In the first half, this plucky premise is handled wonderfully, determinedly avoiding the melodrama that could have attached itself to some of the developments. While the exchanges between the characters are sharply written, a more important problem plagues the film: the characters are extremely underdeveloped. We begin to understand Sandhya slowly, but the others are overlooked. We aren’t given enough to connect with them emotionally. This particular flaw results in the film's climax being unaffecting when it should have been devastating. It feels out of place; I am trying to understand why the film had to end that way. It certainly doesn’t justify its denouement. Furthermore, it doesn’t help that the build-up to the climax is careless. Far too much goes unexplored. For example, when Shyam’s wife discovers his infidelity and leaves him, it doesn’t have a strong effect on him. We don’t see much of her after that. It could have been turned into a critical moment that could have given us a glimpse into the mind of Shyam, but this opportunity is passed to examine how Sandhya warms up to her father’s love interest. That, clearly, is a significant moment in the film, but a lot is sacrificed to make room for it.
The performances are uniformly impressive. There is a very specific character, as complex as any, that Nawazuddin Siddiqui excels at playing: an oily, smart-alecky thug who can slip out of any conundrum, because he knows exactly what people's weaknesses are, and he exploits them to his advantage. He doesn't wear his character's evilness on his sleeve; he brings pathos to this role, and makes us believe that though he – the character – is fundamentally evil, he's still capable of being human. It’s the kind of effort he puts into fleshing this character out that puts him in a class of his own.
This time, though, he finds a match in Mohammad Samad, the little marvel who plays Mintu. His performances in Haraamkhor and 2011’s Gattu confirm that he is a natural. He has an impish charm, a disarming smile, and though he’s sidelined here for the most part, he finds a way to be the scene-stealer that he is. We leave with memories of not Sandhya or Shyam or even Kamal, but Mintu. It takes an actor of prodigious talent to pull this off.
In the end, Haraamkhor is a commendable effort. What's unfortunate is that it settles for ‘commendable’ when a more appropriate adjective, considering the talent that went into making it, could have been ‘great’.
(Not For Reproduction)
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