Review: Akarsh Khurana’s “Karwaan” is a frustratingly bland fare.

[May contain spoilers, many of them.]

It’s not particularly difficult to identify what kind of film Akarsh Khurana’s Karwaan is trying to be. The effort is practically visible. Its characters wear sunglasses picked off a shelf from a designer store. Their clothes are dapper, summery. They travel in a beautiful blue van through some gorgeous, sun-drenched ghats. And their wonderfully trimmed faces (with a touch of make-up) do not show any signs of fatigue or age. Charming. We get a few lines that ruminate over presumably meaningful stuff, like death, life and grief, many of them over a drink of coconut water overlooking streams impossibly blue and lush green trees. We are supposed to swoon, catch these bits of wisdom before they flit through the air and disappear. But the only problem is, we don’t.

Karwaan is a film that proves, among other things, a useful fact: That good-looking films don’t always end up being good cinema. A relationship with a film cannot be built if one doesn't understand from where it originated, why this story needed to be told. Really, there is absolutely no excuse for writing a character who goes on unfounded rants in Hindi whenever he bumps into foreigners, or a coy guy who takes orders (or ‘requests’, if you may, although they don’t sound so) on the phone from a sobbing woman he’s never met. If these are attempts to make us like these two, then one should get the idea that the makers are trying hard to find a footing without straining their imagination too much. And how marvellous to be proved right. For the most part, this film seems to meander through sequences where the characters do things that, I would like to believe, are essential for us to understand them. Only this doesn't happen. These bits seem jarring, alienating us from them. Who are these people? Where do they fit into this world? Why are we supposed to sympathise with them? We don't know. But the film rolls on assuming we do, and so do we.

It's not as if the makers don't try to get us to like them. As if this were a cleverer idea than writing a coherent story, the makers toss in a few painful moments (some unexpectedly hitting their mark) where humour is forced into the story to give it some more juice to keep us invested. These attempts feature a fast-talking character at his brusquest, inviting bewildered looks from the people he comes in contact with. When he’s not jovially expressing his disgust at women wearing ‘skimpy’ clothes (which he does on at least two occasions), he pretends to be mute just so he wouldn’t have to pay for petrol. (Incredible how this callous little detail is played for laughs.)

For all that goes wrong with the film, one thing is for certain: Karwaan’s premise is undoubtedly more interesting than most Hindi films’. Two dead bodies get mixed up, and a software engineer from Bangalore has to travel to Kochi to drop off the ‘wrong’ dead body and pick up his father’s, the ‘right’ one. It could have made a splendid black comedy, but the makers settle for a road film instead. Given that the pleasures of a road film can equal a black comedy’s if done right, this doesn’t seem to be a poor decision at the outset. However, when the characters come into the picture, things do start to look shaky. For one, it often feels as if three different characters written for three different films were plucked out and placed in one, and a blue van was thrown into the mix as an afterthought so that they could be together. These characters have – unsurprisingly – gloomy pasts, and this quirky road trip will – again unsurprisingly – prove to be more eventful and life-changing than they originally thought, wringing their pasts out slowly and allowing them a chance to make peace with them.

If only we were living in the early 2000’s and all of this sounded new. We are, unfortunately, eighteen years into the 21st century. But, this doesn’t deter the makers from approaching it like a brand-new concept, putting together something around the ‘comic’ sequences and ironing it with monologues about life and death to ensure all the elements stay in their place. Half-baked developments are introduced without a good reason. A romantic angle for one character (handled a little insensitively later on) and an encounter with a past flame for another is hardly relevant to the story, which I thought began with a guy trying to arrange for a proper burial for his deceased father from whom he was estranged, but ironically enough these parts are among the film’s most engaging. I am not completely sure the writers intended for it to be so, but much like in life, unpredictability has its own rewards.

What saves the film from being a completely bland fare is the considerable charm of its three leads. (Although it’s been a while since a film has forced Irrfan Khan to ham.) Till the end, Karwaan maintains its distance, its few rewards limited to the surface. I walked away without feeling a thing for any of its characters. That disappointing feeling, I believe, can be cured by a drink of cool coconut water. 

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Review: Mangesh Joshi’s “Lathe Joshi” is a gently moving tale of a man trying to adapt to the modern world.

[Might contain spoilers, many of them.]

The most striking sequence in Mangesh Joshi’s Lathe Joshi sees its mostly silent protagonist, Vijay Joshi, arriving at a busy intersection. The light is not yet green but horns blare. And then, just as he’s about to cross, the light turns green and the vehicles swarm in his direction. They go around him, cutting each other, and nobody stops to let him cross. He stands there, lost. The world is in a damn hurry. It has found a way to get around problems. It is not, at least not necessarily, solving any of them. And Vijay Joshi is yet to catch up.

Joshi appears to be a most simplistic man. Having led a life of routine, he has not stopped once in his tracks and had a look around. The buildings have become taller. The people have become more impatient and cold. He does not know this yet. And one day he is told that he has lost his job to a machine. And it is on this day that he finally has a look and is scared of what he sees. This fear is unclear, something he has never felt before; it is born partly out of desperation and partly out of ignorance. For thirty-five years he has operated a lathe machine. He knows his way around it, all right. To his peers he’s more often “Lathe Joshi” than “Joshi saheb.” And yet, someone has invented a machine that has the ability to surpass his throughput and match his artistry with it, and it certainly did not take thirty-five years to build. It is discernible to us, however, that it cannot challenge his passion. Never that. But how much weight does passion really hold in the world that is far too obsessed with automation?

In most films concerning the relationship between man and machine, there is a thin undercurrent of pessimism pinned to the proceedings. Automation leads to unemployment, which inevitably leads to despair. There is much scope for human drama. But Lathe Joshi does not seem to be interested. It’s more neutral in its examination of a man’s stint with unemployment brought about by automation. Vijay Joshi isn't angry. He does not protest nor does he grumble. He accepts it, not like a man who was ready but like a man who has lost the courage to fight. He is now awake to the modern world, a capitalist world that has been consumed by greed, where machines are employed for throughput and not quality. A world that, perhaps, no longer accepts a beautifully made piston as a résumé. And in this world it is extremely important to upgrade, his peer tells him at one point. This declaration is sandwiched between a brief exchange in which his peer confides in him that he does not comprehend how the machines he has been hired to supervise work, and a tea-boy getting them tea out of a machine. When asked why, the tea-boy simply says the request was for “quick” tea. It is not a particularly incisive detail, but we get the point. They did get tea, but cutting down on manual labor will have consequences when it comes to flavor.

For the most part, Lathe Joshi comes across as two films rolled into one: one about a man trying to keep his dignity during the tumultuous period of unemployment, and the other about him trying to adapt to a home that has already been taken over by machines. His blind mother lives off the noise emanating from the television and a small electronic machine that plays a religious chant over and over again. His wife is wonderstruck by the small miracles of a food processor. And his son, their portal to the modern world, is adept at computer repair and has hardware components strewn all over the house. Machines had penetrated Joshi's personal life a long time ago. But he, someone who has quietly spent most of his life around the cacophony of one particular machine, was oblivious to it. He curiously inspects his son's hardware components. At one point, his blind mother is more skilled than him at changing the television channel. When he offers to help his wife, who runs a small catering business, with an order, she rebuffs him. Unlike him, she’s embracing technology, albeit with the usual hesitation. Joshi, on the other hand, is trying to wrap his head around machines and doing a miserable job of it.

Empathy drives the narrative of Lathe Joshi. The many insights it offers can only come from a place of understanding. At one point, Joshi’s son, the smart aleck of the house, is too slow for the world. It is hardly worth doubting that director Mangesh Joshi has observed these characters and their little dilemmas up close. There is no attempt at turning Vijay Joshi into a hero. We do not feel angry for him. When he wants to buy his own lathe machine, his son tells him he’s too old to run his own business. Maybe he should just sit back and relax. When his son buys a new car, Joshi wants to know when he learnt driving. These are little observations but they contribute significantly when we are trying to put this character into context. For a character who is given only a few lines to say, Vijay Joshi is someone we come to understand and empathize with. And the others who make up his little world – his wife, his mother and his son – are given just the right amount of space for us to examine where they lie in the world he’s been forced to inhabit. We walk away knowing how each of them will go about their lives three or maybe four years from now. And to accomplish this is no mean feat.

Conversely, Lathe Joshi seems to slump just a tad in places because of its repetitiveness. Technology has taken over everything, and they mean everything. The grouchy old woman need not visit a temple to offer her prayers anymore. She can simply go to a website. What’s more, she can even buy a gift while she is at it. The constant reminders about how deeply technology has penetrated our lives are quite unnecessary in a film that is at all times, in one way or another, doing exactly this. But these are simply nitpickings.

I am not sure whether the film would prove to be more meaningful upon a second viewing, but if I do watch it again, I have one particular moment which I would like to savor. It has Joshi visiting his ailing ex-boss, and the guard at his ex-boss’ house is most reluctant to let him in. A call is made through the intercom. His ex-boss cannot come to the phone, of course, so his wife does. The guard mentions that “some Joshi” wants to meet the old man before handing the phone over to Joshi himself. After bringing the receiver to his ear, the woman asks him if he is “Lathe Joshi,” and a smile slowly breaks on his face, lighting it up. He’s been given his identity back. It’s something one cannot put a value on. In a world that no longer seems to recognize his talent, here is hope. I felt my heart soar. And it hadn't soared like this in quite some time.

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Review: Meghna Gulzar’s “Raazi” is an accomplished drama but a middling thriller.

[Might contain spoilers.]

Meghna Gulzar’s Raazi, an adapatation of Harinder S Sikka's novel Calling Sehmat, contains a lot of flashbacks. In fact, the entire story it tells is told through a flashback. And there are different, smaller kinds. The plot traverses over significant little details, and later, just as one detail is about to propel the story forward, we get a sort of visual nudge: Do we remember this? If not, the film has us covered. We see it again, an unwelcome assistant to help us connect the dots. Then there’s a more annoying type, a device Hindi cinema uses so often so carelessly. I like to call it the ‘So This Happened’ flashback. The story is about to arrive at a conclusion, but are the makers really interested in keeping things so predictable? Before the climax that promises a dramatic jolt or two, the story dissolves into an abrupt flashback, marring the narrative flow, where a different set of events are introduced, thereby altering how the climax will play out. Suddenly, we are watching a different movie, a different story, a different set of characters. Is such a sacrifice really necessary simply to inject a little more dramatic momentum in the proceedings?

Thankfully, none of the flashbacks in Raazi alter the story in such a way. Yet, their very presence is a major distraction. In Gulzar’s previous film, Talvar, a terrific police-procedural that took a sensational case of double-murder and explored three possible sets of events that could have culminated in them, the flashback was used rather effectively. What we got was a complex but lucidly told thriller that did not resort to visual nudges, and one that struck loyally to the path it had chosen for itself. In Raazi, the frequency at which – and also the reason why – the flashback is used prods us to ask: Does it serve the narrative as it should?

As a sucker for espionage thrillers, I find nothing to be of greater pleasure than soaking in the details. Something that I find enjoyable about them is the complexity of its story and characters; I like to remember the little things, then marvel when they are referenced later. This persuades me that I am in good hands. And this little part is a test of how good of a reader I am as much as it is of the writer whose hands I am in. Am I able to remember the crucial details? Are they able to write it with the right amount of finesse?

The problem with Raazi is – and this might be its most important – that does not do a good job of convincing us that, as its audience, it trusts us. The narrative isn’t complex enough; it is simply too clear. It’s unwilling to go to a place where it might risk alienating us, which is only a way of saying that it seldom takes any risks, big or small. Everything is accessible. We know what each character is thinking at any given point. If we don’t, the characters helpfully apprise us of it. And this, unfortunately, results in the storytelling coming off as a little too simplistic. The proper precautions were taken, but where should the line have been drawn?

That said, there is no shortage of skill in Raazi. It explores a subject that Indian filmmakers often tend to ignore, or feel uncompelled to explore to its fullest potential: The emotional toll of betrayal. With patriotism being the chief selling point of recent Hindi espionage thrillers, it is Gulzar’s creative decision to put people before country that makes Raazi a splendid drama, if not as good a thriller. There is talk of loyalty to one’s country, but when Sehmat, our protagonist, triggers a series of events that push her against a hard wall, we don’t see her as a patriot; instead, we get a young woman who has been put in extraordinary circumstances, circumstances beyond her control or understanding. And when she breaks down, we still see her as that woman. Gulzar and co-screenwriter Bhavani Iyer’s thoughtful interpretation of Sehmat makes Raazi a rich drama, one that is romantic and handsome and sly and emotional, but can also turn icy when it wants to.

What also works in favour of the film is Gulzar’s eye for detail. I was especially smitten with the lovely little touches that are hard to catch but add so much to the characters. When Sehmat marries, her husband pulls a screen to separate their beds every night till she is comfortable being alone with him. It’s a gesture to show how much he cares for her. And this is never drawn attention to. He understands that she, being a new bride, would need privacy, that this would be the only place where she might find it. It’s been a while since affection has been this understated in Hindi cinema. There are no song-and-dance sequences nor are there overly dramatic declarations. Gulzar presses her actors to emote through their eyes, through little gestures, and it just about works. There is no attempt at turning the film into a romantic drama, but it makes us invest in Sehmat’s dilemma just a bit more in the film’s climax.

Raazi has a lot in common with Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful Notorious, in which a woman becomes a spy at the behest of a government agent and is asked to infiltrate a group of Nazis, one of whom she marries. One of Notorious’ key strengths, other than the fact that it stars the gorgeous Ingrid Bergman, is that at no point in that film did I feel that the casualties of the protagonist’s actions would be limited to people alone. Innocence and, indeed, love are always the first casualties of betrayal. Raazi could have accomplished something close to that. It’s unfortunate that it ends up settling for something less.

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Essay: Kundan Shah’s “Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa” and the Birth of the Likable Loser.

I still remember the first time I saw Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa. I was nine and holed up in a hotel in Nashik, flipping through the channels on television, contemplating whether I should watch a talk show on MTV or a movie on the next channel starring Shah Rukh Khan which I happened to stumble upon. On instinct, I chose to go with the movie.

Back in 2002, when I was watching it, Khan had already established himself as a romantic hero. Tousled hair, a dimpled smile and a boyish charm accompanying a seemingly bratty persona, there was no question of imagining anyone else playing it with such aplomb, such ease, such grace. Khan seemed to be born into the skin of the role; as a child, I could scarcely believe the tales from his days as a struggling actor and that he didn’t come from privilege. But watching Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa was, I remember, a singularly frustrating experience, all because I was familiar with this image he had carved for himself. I put the channel on at that moment in the film in which Sunil, the character he plays, is at his most vulnerable, most innocent. He is at a carnival with the girl of his dreams, holding two cones of ice-cream, and has just been caught lying. The other man, the manifestation of the ‘perfect’ man and one of the two victims of this rather harmless lie, threatens to tell on him. But Sunil, suddenly panicky, does not want him to. He does, though, and Sunil is compelled to tell the truth. The truth is simple enough: He lied for her, because he wanted her to go to the carnival with him, just the two of them. He fumbles through his explanation but his reasons are genuine. He may not be bright but he is pure, purer than the girl and the guy, purer than most of us, any of us. His actions may be deplorable but in that moment I didn’t hate him. And after several viewings over several years, I still don’t.

I don’t know how Khan did it. And I don’t know how director Kundan Shah and co-writer Pankaj Advani wrote it. Sunil never wins at anything. He lies to his band-mates when he is late to a practice session. It's the second time in a week. He has failed his exams thrice. (Later on, when he fails again, he grudgingly agrees to lie to his father that he passed and back it up with a fake mark-sheet.) And then that lie to go to the carnival with the girl of his dreams. He tries, fails, and then tries again. Over and over. He hurts people. He hurts himself. And then he’s back to his cheerful old ways, trying to make amends. In the hands of a lesser actor with little charm to spare, the results would have been unsatisfactory, to say nothing of how unwatchable and bland it would have made the film. But Khan manages to pull it off by playing it just right. His performance is a mixture of empathy and courage, vulnerability and bravura. Sunil’s whimsical world is limited, his dreams are modest, and he keeps them together in his own clumsy way.

For a Hindi romantic-comedy or even a Hindi film for that matter, Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa is a surprisingly testing watch. Sunil’s love evades him. The girl never cares about him enough to stop and consider him as a potential suitor, never takes him seriously. He is always, always a friend. And in his innocence he doesn’t push it, doing as much as he can with the little attention she gives him. He lets her slip out of his grasp, choosing loneliness and music to help him tide over his heartbreak when she falls in love with someone else. We see him suffer, helpless and distraught. And in the climax of the film that I now recall so vividly as if it were only yesterday that I saw it for the first time, right after he chooses to let her go purely for the sake of her happiness, and just after the cursed ring slips out of her hand and rolls into the benches as she’s putting it on the finger of the man she’s about to marry, which makes the whole church get up and look for it, he sees her as if in a dream, exuberantly happy, calling out to him. It’s a confusing moment for him: there is his sister is in the crowd, weeping silently for her brother for only she knows how much this would take from him, and there is the girl he loves, wanting to know if he has found the ring. He has. He’s seen it. But, he shakes his head. Emotion floods his face, overwhelming him. It’s Sunil at his most selfish, most human. This is one thing he cannot do. He can never truly let her go.

If a single moment can indeed define a film, this one is Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa. It allows us a cursory glance into the mind of a character that Hindi films seem to fear, a character they put up so rarely, and never so exquisitely: a guy who’d rather be selfish than generous, who’d rather be flawed than saintly, who’d rather follow his heart than do what the world expects him to. 

Hindi films are often about the hero and heroine walking into the sunset together. This one rolls its eyes at it. It is, bravely, far too busy consoling the guy the hero beat to get to her.

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Review: Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla's “An Insignificant Man” captures a tale that the papers did not.

[May contain spoilers, many of them.]

You may have never seen Arvind Kejriwal laugh. And by laugh, I mean it originating from somewhere deep within, a genuinely helpless fit of laughter that leaves one chuckling quietly by just looking at him. He’s trying to thwart his colleague’s attempts at recording a voiceover that will accompany the television advertisement for his political party. That laugh – be it from anyone, even a politician – is infectious enough to shatter any preconceived image one may have of them. In interviews and at rallies, Kejriwal comes across as dour and determined, seemingly far too occupied to be amused about something. This moment takes that image and subverts it. Here we see a side of his that prompts his colleague to wonder, “Do the people outside know he can laugh?” We know what he means.

To call Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla’s An Insignificant Man a rare and fascinating gem would be overstating it a little, but it would still be the truth. The fact that it is rare is what makes it so fascinating. We have always been a rather sensitive nation when it comes to politics. We believe it is our constitutional right to shield our leaders from unwelcome criticism, to project them as patriots of the first order, and are ever so keen to see them as men and women of impeccable charm and searing intelligence. The cameras dilute them for us, making them appear more like role models and not like people. Here we see them as people, perhaps for the first time.

What puts An Insignificant Man amongst the year's best films is not just its ability to commendably capture the enormous effort and determination that went into making one of the most remarkable political feats this country has seen in the last few years, but also allow us the luxury of that thrill even if some of us are not inclined to any political party or ideology. It is foremost a story of an underdog wanting to put things right, an underdog whose fight we saw on television, in interviews, through tales and rumors told in buses and trains. But we were declined the opportunity to see what went behind closed doors and pulled curtains. He had supporters and he had haters, and each one, regardless of whether or not they put their trust in him, was curious to know what he could do. He was belligerent, passionate, and outspoken. He took names. He turned many heads. He put on quite a show. I wanted to know more, wanted to keep up with him, even though I never really saw myself supporting his brand of politics. Television reduces these stories of fascinating people to mundane thirty-minute prime-time programs, where they are talked about, dissected, and eventually, inevitably forgotten. Thousands of people tell a thousand tales on television every day and night. Some stories get lost in the shuffle. Some are elbowed out of the spotlight when the next bit of sensational news breaks. What if someone were to stitch the bits that got on television and some that didn't and give us a fully realized real-life character who waged a war against a corrupt system that never spared a chance to try to squash him?

Whether or not An Insignificant Man achieves that is largely our call. It nosily goes inside rooms where he holds meetings with his supporters and refuses to sneak out when he is at his most vulnerable, at his most confused. He wants to do good for his people but also clearly wants to be the final word on all matters. It's not as if the film doesn't take sides; this is a film that is is very much one-sided, but not one-note. It does not eulogize him. It presents him as a person who makes promises so tall that it that puts even his staunchest supporters in a spot. And this is not a film about him, but the battle he and his party fought, a lengthy and complex fight that, over its course, changed the people associated with it and even those who were not, at least directly.

The sort of access the makers get here, uncommon in this part of the world, leads to some fine little details that help us get through to the man – men – we are watching. There is a terrific moment when Kejriwal and his right-hand man, Yogendra Yadav, pensively walk out of a room, down a flurry of steps, and pause to put on their Gandhi caps, a symbol that has come to be associated with the middle-class, before meeting swarms of supporters. It's a moment worthy of a quiet chuckle; in politics, where the absurd is almost never noticed, an identity is essential. They slip into it moments before something important. Even when giving an interview with his trademark bluntness to a television channel after walking out of a film inspired by his movement, he nervously fiddles with the corner of his shirt when the camera moves to the reporter. These details, as trivial and throwaway-like they might seem, make the experience more human, more accessible than any television prime-time program would.

Among other things An Insignificant Man also allows us the opportunity to laugh at not just our politicians, whom we have entrusted to run our gullible country, not just our institutions, but also at the absurdities that we find in every nook and corner of this place. These bits are presented without much gusto, as if they are inseparable to the Indian political scene. My favorite involves two processions of political rivals crossing each other on the road quite coincidentally, leading to an uncomfortable stillness before their supporters erupt with chants. The two rivals have lambasted each other in political rallies and television programs, and now find it a bit awkward to find the courtesy to acknowledge each other openly. They do, of course, but the sequence is an example of how satire finds a way to entrench itself in Indian politics.

Ultimately, An Insignificant Man arrives at a known conclusion, but it leaves us with a satisfied feeling of having watched a narrative that the papers didn't quite capture. There have been countless films over the years that have discreetly highlighted how we failed as a people. An Insignificant Man has something else on its mind. It shows us how we succeeded.

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Review: Kranti Kanade’s “CRD” is the year’s most curious and frustrating work.

[May contain spoilers, many of them.]

A sack is held up. A man orders a group of fledgling actors to toss in their cellphones and keys. A moment later, another man walks in. He's the important fellow; he looks calm. The group is noticeably nervous. He singles out a woman from the group and stares hard at her breasts. The hopeful look on her face when she saw him fades and slowly gives way to insecurity. She's suddenly very aware of his gaze. He notices this and chides her. If she wants to be an actor, he says, she has got to get used to this. He adds that there will be men who will gaze at her the way he did and maybe masturbate at the thought of her later on. Insecurity over how a person looks at them is a trait of a bad actor – if they ever become one, that is.

It's one of the early scenes in Kranti Kanade's CRD. The language is coarse; the execution, fearless; and the ideas, boggling. It's rare and refreshing to see an Indian film rejecting the imply-but-do-not-show approach that many Indian filmmakers choose to take in order to make their film more consumable. Kanade is barely interested. His approach is more immersive, more tangible. The camera never leaves the actors, never observes them from a distance but through tight close-ups. We are very much there. It's a captivating experience, even when it becomes too surreal, too uncomfortable. For every single minute of its 108-minute runtime, CRD risks revolting the conservative viewer with its daring.

On a more personal note, I cherish such films unless they are daring for the sake of being daring. In recent years, India has nourished an ecosystem where independent cinema can thrive, and this has resulted in passionate filmmakers making passionate films on paltry budgets. But a more personal grouch is that some of these films are visibly eager to shock and be spoken about. It affects the experience, because it feels, to me, contrived. I like watching risks being taken, and there is no greater thrill when the filmmakers pull it off, but if these risks are simply to ensure the film will be spoken about later, I would not categorize it as great cinema.

CRD, thankfully, avoids this.

The teacher employs a number of tricks to get this group get in touch with their emotional side. He likes to break them down so that they can bring a raw and realized quality to the play. This involves talking about their most tragic experiences, discouraging them without mincing words (he tells a budding actress she’s so unattractive that the best role she might snag would be of a female cop), even fornicating with their mothers. This does not sit well with our protagonist, a newbie to this environment of the cutthroat inter-college theater competition prep and an accidental one at that. He actually wants to be a writer. But they have writers. They need actors. Ta-da.

Using the competition as a background, CRD examines the artistic process very closely and how it sometimes brings out the worst in people. It is a product of rigorous filmmaking, superb performances and at times incredible imagination. It is also quite a bit of fun. But, surprising for a film of such energy, it is an exhausting picture. Kanade, an FTII and UCLA alum, likes to pay his tributes. Which is why, I guess, CRD assumes the appearance of a film that tries to do a lot in such a short span of time. In places we are led to believe that it has almost decided to be a certain kind of film with a certain kind of appeal, but it surprises us by being something entirely different. In one scene it’s accessible, within our grasp, but in the next, it ends up being surreal, freeing itself from it.

These shifts in tone rarely come across as jarring. Because Kanade is a superior filmmaker, and CRD’s biggest pleasures stem from how it jumps from one exciting scene to the next, from one idea to the next. I would be lying if I said that these elements – well written independent scenes interspersed with brief animated sequences and often inscrutable ones – work together as one. They don’t. They can, and do, get frustrating. But how can one accuse a film of trying too hard when it rarely tosses in a dull image or idea? 

It is commendable for a film that experiments as much as CRD does with its narrative to not lose focus from its central characters. For the teacher, winning is everything, even if it means writing a manipulative play on patriotism, where two Indian soldiers try to coax information from a female Pakistani spy without harassing her physically because they are Indian, and playing the national anthem in the end to drive his point home. For the protagonist, opportunity is everything, even if it means stealing the limelight with, should we say, not entirely ethical means. Their character arcs are developed with great restraint. The teacher, though a formidable opponent, is moved by art. The protagonist, though sincere with a more idealistic perspective toward art, abuses it at one point. It’s an interesting point to explore, which CRD, in its final moments, does with quiet success.

Ultimately, the film we get is as brave as it is frustrating, as weird as it is exhilarating. I am not sure I will watch it a second time. I do not feel it is necessary, for I do not have a reason to. All I know is, I am not likely to forget it anytime soon, for reasons both good and bad.

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Review: Amit V Masurkar’s “Newton” is that rare satire that gets it right.

[May contain spoilers, many of them.]

The most telling line, in a movie full of telling lines and telling images, comes about twenty minutes into Amit V Masurkar’s Newton. At four in the morning, amidst pitch darkness, a team of armymen and government officials prepare for an eight-kilometer trek to a school where an election will be held. Bulletproof vests are slipped into, guns are kept at ready. (The CPRF officer, Aatma Singh, cannot emphasize enough on how ‘dangerous’ the area is; at one point, he makes the group a most unusual offer: that his men will brave the forests and go to the villages to get votes from eligible voters instead of the whole team doing it in a more democratic way.)

We see a woman walking up to them. She is a local, we find out; there to ensure that no city-educated, Hindi-speaking (the local language is Gondi), gun-cradling individual can mislead the locals into voting or, more likely, not voting. Her name is Malko. Aatma Singh is at once vigilant. He asks her for identification, which she has, but he asks her to return. Newton’s, the protagonist, way of introduction is friendlier; he smiles and welcomes her with a traditional namaste. Aatma Singh is dour. He accepts Newton’s request of allowing her to come along (though he clearly does not seem to be too happy about it) and orders his men to give her a bulletproof vest, too. Only she does not want it. ‘I am a local,’ says Malko. ‘I will be in greater danger if I wear one.’

It’s a marvelous line. It is that moment, one of the many in this film, where optimism and skepticism clash and the results are for everyone to see. Her understanding of this region has been conditioned by its political turmoil and years of violence, so she knows exactly how someone will react upon seeing her wearing one of those ‘government’ vests. She feels safer without it.

The other side of the same coin is Aatma Singh. He, too, has been conditioned to expect the worst. There’s a hint of distrust in the way he looks at her and speaks to her. But it’s not his fault. He’s passionate about his country and his boys; he wishes for a fatter budget so that the government can buy better weapons for them.

In the middle is Newton. An idealist and do-gooder through and through, Newton’s understanding of the world lies in the pages of his copy of the election manual. Both the woman and CPRF officer, inform him on more than one occasion that he doesn’t understand this region; while his intentions may be noble and his sincerity hard to rival, he’s far removed from the world they are accustomed to. His determination is childlike because he doesn’t understand, or maybe because he’s ignoring the hard truths. The film is, in a way, Newton’s introduction to his own country, a country he wants to protect and serve but one that won’t let him.

The Maoists have asked for a complete boycott of the elections. There is a looming threat of an attack. Every crack of a branch, every rustle of leaves is a cause for alarm. Newton, accompanied by two colleagues and Malko, and the CPRF officer and his team, has to conduct a fair election. The total number of eligible voters is seventy-six. Most of them are illiterate and unfamiliar with the voting process, partly because nobody really cared about their votes till now and partly because they never really cared.

But Newton wants to change that. He wants them to vote of their own accord. And not just that: he wants them to vote for the candidate they want to see as their leader. Without oppression or threats, like it should happen in a proper democracy. It’s far from simple. When he explains to them how an electronic voting machine works and rattles off the list of names of the candidates, Malko helpfully steps in to illuminate him about how things are. These people have never heard of these names before. They do not know the parties they represent. Or the promises they have made. How could they possibly know whom to vote for? When they push a man from their group forward saying he is their politician and leader, Newton is more bemused than amused. That’s not how a democracy functions. But again, have they ever been part of a democracy?

And therein lies the beauty of Newton. It asks these questions which, at a time when political discourse has been reduced to babel, qualify as brave. The approach isn't accusatory but shrewd; it's almost miraculous how the makers get away with it. Masurkar and his co-screenwriter Mayank Tewari aren’t really interested in exploring Newton’s disillusionment with the system. Newton isn’t readily made a hero of nor is Aatma Singh made a villain; they are both right in their own ways, and we get their agitation. Both have flawed ideologies. Both have been caught in the crossfire between the government and communists. And both have now found themselves in the same boat.

The film does seem to pit them against each other too often, given how Aatma Singh always seems to patronize locals, which Newton disapproves of. But this film isn’t about who wins between the two of them; they are simply cogs in a much larger machine. It’s about a bigger war being fought in the background, which we never see, and how innocent civilians are inevitably sucked into it. It’s a film that concerns itself less with the big problems and more with the consequences they have.

Newton works, as it should, due to its remarkable writing. With its roots firmly in the satirical territory, it allows us the luxury to laugh at certain things that one would only laugh at in a satire. But beneath the humor there is truth, stinging and uncomfortable, making us squirm. There is poignancy. In a particularly vivid scene, the villagers are grabbed from their homes and herded to the polling booth (the scene wisely crosscuts between that and a chicken getting caught and killed) because a foreign journalist wishes to get a piece of the election pie on tape. The façade is captured on camera and peddled as ‘democracy’ and ‘development’. The metaphor of the chicken couldn’t be more obvious, but it works.

Newton falters a little in the film’s third act when our protagonist, in a desperate bid to do the right thing, does something totally outrageous. It’s handled lightheartedly, making Newton come off as a Gandhian hero more than anything, but sometimes subtlety cannot be the answer. Something less theatrical would have worked beautifully here. Still, it is hardly a blot on an otherwise darn impressive film. The country moves on, as do our characters, in the same flimsy, flawed way it always has. But I could not resist feeling that the characters belong elsewhere. Maybe if Newton and Aatma Singh would have put their determination to use in better circumstances, we would have been better off.

(Not For Reproduction)