Assi

Anubhav Sinha’s latest, Assi (“80”), is a uniquely uncomfortable film to watch. There are two reasons. The first one is by design. The title lays it out: approximately 80 women are sexually assaulted in India every day. The film is built to convey the full force of this number. It revolves around one such ‘case,’ opening with what looks like a regular day in the life of Parima (Kani Kusruti), a Kerala-born schoolteacher residing in Delhi with her husband (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) and son. There’s a tangible undercurrent to her middle-class routine; something bad is around the corner. While returning from a staff party one night, it happens: five men pull her into a moving car and rape her for hours, repeatedly and brutally. She is dumped on a railway track. It’s 2025, but the ghost of 2012 hangs heavy. It’s national news. The law-enforcement, trial-by-media and justice mechanisms take over.

Anubhav Sinha is a fine filmmaker. More importantly, he is a fine filmmaker with a conscience that refuses to be cowed down and a voice that resists being drowned out. After Islamophobia (Mulk), caste chasm (Article 15), marital violence (Thappad) and the pandemic-induced migrant crisis (Bheed), Sinha trains his lens on rape, with the title of his latest film Assi being derived from a terrifying statistic that slaps one in the face, hard and long, as soon as the film begins. As many as 80 women are raped in India every day, one happening every 27 minutes. Assi keeps reminding you of these numbers, in ways more direct than subtle, throughout its 143-minute runtime.

When a film talks about a crime as dastardly as rape, gang rape in this case, its social import is disturbing. The nocturnal rape of schoolteacher Parima (Kani Kusruti) on a lonely stretch in Delhi, brings out all that’s expected of a crime. Those equipped to get away with it, will escape jail term without too much of a compromise with the conscience. The victim will stay traumatised, the family bewildered, helpless. The lawyer will fight but justice will be frustratingly elusive. Writer-director Anubhav Sinha’s opening shot of a mercilessly beaten woman thrown on a railway track is unambiguous in its intent.