[Might contain spoilers, many of them.]
I have lived in Mumbai all my life and I know what a nightmare that could be. Finding an apartment takes weeks, months even. He has two days. He tries to work out a deal with several real-estate agents but none of them like the sound of his budget. Finally, and now slightly desperate, he agrees to deal with one shady guy. It’s an apartment on the 35th floor of a high-rise, overlooking the vast, sprawling, intimidating city. On his first visit, he notices that the house has problems. The shady guy reveals that the apartment doesn’t belong to him; it belongs to someone else, some Javed bhai. But it doesn’t matter to him. He has managed to find an apartment. The first hurdle has been crossed, so to speak.
It’s easy to place ourselves in the shoes of the protagonist, Shaurya, whom we see in Trapped. He’s the everyday nobody, an unremarkable, scrawny chap who enjoys pav-bhaji slathered in butter and trusts blindly when anxious. He stutters while speaking to the girl. He forgets to reason with her when she demands that they move into a bigger apartment. He doesn’t leave his house without bowing in front of a framed picture of a god, and this habit finally costs him. He gets locked inside his new house without food, water and electricity.
On paper the idea must sound quite ridiculous. How can someone living in a populous metropolis be stranded? Wrestling for personal space is something everyone does everyday here. But Vikramaditya Motwane is no ordinary filmmaker. He’s thoughtful, observant, and knows how to work with details. He constructs the scene where Shaurya gets locked in carefully. The lock always remains jammed. The electricity circuit trips without warning. We see this when Shaurya visits the apartment for the first time, an omen of sorts. The watchman is half deaf, the building crummy, thus eliminating the possibilities of other residents, and the apartment is on the 35th floor. When Shaurya tries to hammer, kick, punch, yell his way out, we get an idea of how helpless he really is. There is really nobody coming.
This has been seen before, most memorably in Robert Zemeckis’ Castaway, but never in a Hindi film. Motwane doesn’t focus on the heroics of Shaurya but instead on how this predicament takes a toll on his physical and mental health. Shaurya, shy and timid, tries and fails, picks himself up, fights his fear of rats, and finds himself at his most resourceful when he’s thirsty and the city, surprising as it usually is, blesses him with a welcome shower. He thinks of ways to get people to notice him. He lights a fire, makes a slingshot, tries to find a means to escape. His coming-of-age, from a timid guy who was comfortable in a crowd to someone willing to steer his destiny, is the defining moment of the film, and it is rousing.
Like in the two films Motwane has made previously, the detailing is careful. If Mumbai is the villain of Trapped, then it’s certainly the most complex one in recent memory. It consumes Shaurya whole, breaks him, but also helps him up when he’s down. It’s omnipresent. When Shaurya looks out of his balcony at the twinkling lights of the city, it seems as if the city is staring back at him, in the eye. When he sits silently, the sounds of traffic and construction work can be heard in the distance. Freedom is within his reach, but the city is unwilling to give it to him without a fight, without making him work for it first.
And then there is a recurrent detail involving a cockroach. When Shaurya wakes up to fight to survive for another day, he sees the cockroach first. It is like him, fighting to survive another day, not knowing which mountain needs to be scaled next. It’s in details like these that we realize we are in the hands of a terrific filmmaker who knows his job all too well.
There are problems with one-character films like Trapped and they are not limited to the narrative only. On one hand, they can get repetitive and dull fairly quickly, and might even seem overlong even when they are actually brief. If the actor portraying the role slips up only once, the whole film might come crashing down. On the other hand, we need to be convinced of the protagonist’s predicament. At least I need to know that there is no way out for him. Unless I am convinced, I cannot fully invest my attention in his fight for freedom. Trapped has a few errors in its logic, and certain developments in its story seems a little too contrived. There is also a brief period during which it gets repetitive. These are characteristics of most one-man films out there, and it’s unfortunate that Trapped, too, is a victim of them.
Of course, I am in a privileged position to pinpoint where it goes wrong. To imagine it all and to tell it the way it has been told is not an easy job. I realize that. Motwane does a fine, fine job of letting the plot unfold organically. Trapped overcomes its narrative challenges and Rajkummar Rao, who plays Shaurya, is absolutely terrific in it. It’s that rare film that belongs as much to its director as it does to its actor. It’s unfair that we get to see a film from him once in about four years. There’s a silent ten-minute epilogue at the end that is a masterly touch. If that doesn’t make one believe in Motwane’s talent, I don’t know what does.
There are problems with one-character films like Trapped and they are not limited to the narrative only. On one hand, they can get repetitive and dull fairly quickly, and might even seem overlong even when they are actually brief. If the actor portraying the role slips up only once, the whole film might come crashing down. On the other hand, we need to be convinced of the protagonist’s predicament. At least I need to know that there is no way out for him. Unless I am convinced, I cannot fully invest my attention in his fight for freedom. Trapped has a few errors in its logic, and certain developments in its story seems a little too contrived. There is also a brief period during which it gets repetitive. These are characteristics of most one-man films out there, and it’s unfortunate that Trapped, too, is a victim of them.
Of course, I am in a privileged position to pinpoint where it goes wrong. To imagine it all and to tell it the way it has been told is not an easy job. I realize that. Motwane does a fine, fine job of letting the plot unfold organically. Trapped overcomes its narrative challenges and Rajkummar Rao, who plays Shaurya, is absolutely terrific in it. It’s that rare film that belongs as much to its director as it does to its actor. It’s unfair that we get to see a film from him once in about four years. There’s a silent ten-minute epilogue at the end that is a masterly touch. If that doesn’t make one believe in Motwane’s talent, I don’t know what does.
(Not For Reproduction)
