Anuj Kumar

Bollywood seldom tells stories of Dalit assertion. It mostly sees the marginalised as victims who need the compassion and cover of an upper caste saviour. Perhaps, that’s why the inspirational story of Jyotirao (Pratik Gandhi) and Savitribai Phule (Patralekhaa) remained off the radar of commercial filmmakers. Known to pick up challenging subjects, this week, writer-director Ananth Mahadevan turns his lens on the intrepid Maharashtrian couple that challenged the prevailing social order and the upper caste hegemony in the 19th century through education and progressive values, and started a mission against caste and gender discrimination. Unlike last week, when Kesari fictionalised the story of C. Sankaran Nair beyond recognition to cash on some chest-thumping moments, Mahadevan is sedate, largely sticks to the recorded history, and doesn’t lend his work an overtly agitative tone.

With the OTT platforms investing more energy and intensity into the long form, feature films are languishing like one-day cricket. Rehan (Saif Ali Khan), a rakish thief, is hired by Rajan Aulakh (Jaideep Ahlawat), a criminal in the garb of an art collector, to steal Red Sun, the African equivalent of Kohinoor. The title ‘Jewel Thief’ unnecessarily draws comparisons with Goldie’s iconic crime caper. The makers even drop the name of Vijay Anand in one sequence, but could mine precious little out of flattery. Saif and Jaideep have cut down on flab and look fab in crisp suits. It is hard to decipher who has a better drawl or could chew the scenery and the vowels better. While the boys jostle to steal the scene, an elegant Nikita Dutta sparkles in a glam avatar. However, the visual aspect fails to liven up the flat writing and insipid music.

Bollywood is going through a ‘sorry’ phase. Last week, in Jaat, Sunny Deol sought an apology from a Sri Lankan extremist. This week, it is the turn of Akshay Kumar to demand an apology from the British government for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. While the former was an outright piece of fiction, director and co-writer Karan Singh Tyagi takes excessive creative liberty with history to manufacture nationalist sentiment and a hero. It seems that after playing with ancient history, the big boys of Bollywood are meddling with modern history. While the dastardly act of the Empire needs to be exposed, the film, produced by Dharma Productions, milks the sacrifice of martyrs in Jallianwala Bagh to create a trumped-up narrative around the tragic episode.

Sunny Deol comes out of memes this week, demanding an apology from naysayers. Taking a break from the western front, the original one-man army fires a salvo on the Coromandel coast. When Bollywood takes a break from Muslim terrorists, it reincarnates Ravan to take on the hero. A decade after Shah Rukh Khan rode on Chennai Express, Sunny gets on to a saffronised Ayodhya Express with the thumping chants of Jai Shri Ram playing in the background to take on Ranatunga, a fierce antagonist from Sri Lanka who is ruling a landmass in coastal Andhra with the help of a corrupt system. Sunny’s father, Dharmendra, uprooted many such Hukumat up north in the 1980s. With the Hindi heartland increasingly becoming out of bounds for mainstream commercial cinema to situate tales of a politician-criminal nexus, Sunny recycles the formula, flexes muscles down South, and shows that even in his 60s, he is the real bulldozer.

Subversion is not something we expect from a Salman Khan film. Kabir Khan channelled the child in him in a political environment in Bajrangi Bhaijaan. In Sikandar, writer-director AR Murugadoss seeks to repurpose the star to out-punch his detractors but fails to find layers in Salman’s what-you-see-is-what-you-get persona on screen. Perhaps taking a cue from Shah Rukh Khan’s recent spectacular success with self-referencing in Pathaanand Jawan, the star has headlined the Eid gift for his fans. However, the present has not been packaged well, as it reads like a PR riposte to the recent events, in and around his personal life. Salman plays Sanjay Rajkot, a.k.a Sikandar, a Gujarati royal with a heart of gold. A do-gooder, we don’t get to know his business, but his doting wife (Rashmika Mandanna) feels a tad ignored. One day, he beats up a lascivious boy in a moving plane to protect a woman. The boy turns out to be the son of the home minister, resulting in a war of attrition. A personal loss triggers a wave of emotions that pushes Sikandar into violence.

A good student of cinema, creator Neeraj Pandey keeps revising chapters that eulogise the exploits of men in uniform and fatigues. This is a syllabus where he scores well. After an engrossing Bihar file that took us to the vortex of caste and crime in Bihar, Pandey and his creative team travel further east to open a window on the games politicians play for power in West Bengal. Barun Roy (Prosenjit Chatterjee), a powerful politician and businessman, uses criminals and policemen to remain ahead of the opposition, led by Nibedita Basak (Chitrangada Singh). Ganglord Shankar Barua (Saswata Chatterjee), who has risen from poverty to gain popularity among the deprived, does a dirty job for the kingmaker. However, in the politics of fear, Baruah alias Bagha loses control over his den when his two enterprising acolytes, Sagar (Ritwik Biswas) and Ranjit (Adil Khan), let their egos and ambition get the better of them and they shoot down two police officers. To clear the mess, Roy brings in an honest police officer Ajay Mitra (Jeet) for whom ends are more important than means. But, as expected, the plan backfires.

Celebrating the cultural ethos of a city through an anthology is not a new cinematic concept. Over the years, we have watched films etching the spirit of Paris, Tokyo, and Mumbai on celluloid. This week, we have some distinguished names from the Indian film industry collaborating with Australian talent to mark the cultural diversity of Melbourne. Known for their distinct idiom, Onir, Imtiaz Ali, Rima Das, and Kabir Khan map the themes of sexuality, disability, gender, and race, gently emphasising the inclusive nature of the city. Based on real-life stories, the protagonists’ truth touches the emotional buttons without necessarily triggering a wave of reaction. Perhaps the format limits the creative souls from taking leaps of faith and deepening the conflict as in the short form, sometimes the goal becomes more important than the means. The denouement starts knocking at the door before the journey is fully realised.

Sometimes, the timing of a film’s release makes it special. A few years back, Inn Galiyon Main would have been dubbed dated for repeating the obvious. Today, its theme is here and now. Mostly, social values inform a film, but sometimes, a social churn leads to a creative outpouring. At a time when festivals and cricket matches have become a stick to browbeat a community, Inn Galiyon Main celebrates Holi and Eid at a space where Hanuman and Rahman Gali coalesce in Lucknow. An ode to the syncretic culture that has almost been reduced to a slur in hate-filled narratives on social media, the film exposes the divisive politics fuelled by cheap data with a poetic parable.