Film Review: Maatr

Date: 14 April 2017

Director: Ashtar Sayed

Writer: Michael Pellico

Cast: Raveena Tandon, Madhur Mittal, Divya Jagdale, Saheem Khan

Rating: 3. 5 stars.

After the school annual day, Vidya Chauhan/ Raveena Tandon, a school teacher and her daughter Tia/ Alisha Khan are stuck in a bad traffic jam and Vidya takes an alternate route that lands them in a ditch. Mother and daughter are pulled out of the ditch by a car following them and taken not to the hospital but an empty apartment.

 What follows is a nightmare that exposes Delhi’s high class society comprising power brokers, corrupt police and a flawed judiciary.

Maatr is yet another story of yet another rape victim pronounced guilty for the tragedy and ostracized by the immediate family post the ravage.

Many things go in favor of the film. First, the screenplay, writer Michael Pellico briefly but precisely establishes equations in relationships, for instance you get to know early in the narrative that all is not well between Vidya and her husband/ Apurva Malik and her support comes from her artist friend Ritu/ Divya Jagdale.

 You learn that Inspector Shroff/ Anurag Arora is a pawn in the system and there is relief in his voice when he watches the flames go in air in the climax and exclaims ‘It is finally over’.

The film excels in all the technical departments. Hari Vedantam’s seductive cinematography combined with Manoj Magarr’s razor sharp editing and Utkarsh Umesh Dhotekar’s haunting music, grips you to the engaging narrative from the start to the finish.

Director Ashtar Sayeed repackages the old revenge formula into a chilling, stomach churning story of contemporary India that will leave you wounded and inspired at the same time!

What is disappointing is that the plot overlooks some relevant details: The characters live in sprawling apartments without any domestic help or any indication of neighborhood. For an accident that was breaking news, it is surprising that Vidya goes back to her job without any corridor gossip or paparazzi both at home, school.

Diyya Jagdale as Raveena’s friend and Anurag Arora as Inspector Shroff make an impact but the film finally belongs to Raveena Tandon who internalizes her anger to deliver a consistent and understated performance.

It is difficult to believe that the actor has been away for 14 years, we last her in Satta/ 2003. There’s one problem though, Vidya Chouhan is distractingly attractive to be missed in a crowd or to be passed off as a school teacher.

Maatr is not an easy watch but make the effort because it is about changing ourselves. I rate Maatr with 3.5 stars.

Film Review: Begum Jaan

Date: 14 April 2017

Producer: Vishesh Films

Director: Srijit Mukherji

Cast: Vidya Balan, Ila Arun, Naseeruddin Shah

Rating: 2.5 stars

In 2015 Srijit Mukherji made Raj Kahani in Bengali starring Rituparna Sengupta which told the story of independence when Sir Cyril Radcliffe divided India-Pakistan into equal halves. What the administration was not prepared for was that the dividing line would run through the middle of Begum Jaan/ Vidya Balan’s brothel situated away from the town on the border.

Now two years later, filmmaker Srijit Mukherji has remade his Bengali film in Hindi as Begum Jaan with a few changes. While Raj Kahani started in British India and ended in 1947 Begum Jaan opens in present times and goes into a flashback.

In 70 years of independence, we have watched many stories of freedom struggle, some from a religion perspective, some from social perspective, some political and some human stories! This is the first story to present a female gaze.

Begum Jaan is warned about the decision by INC and the Muslim League, but she pays no heed because she has the king/ Naseeruddin Shah by her side, however as the climate changes and the kings and leaders are reduced to pawns, Jaan knows that she has nobody to depend upon except herself and prepares for the fight.

What work in favor of the film is the unusual plot, the music, and the ambiance! What doesn’t is the gimmicky frames and the recurrent flashbacks. If only the writer had sketched other characters as passionately as his protagonist. There are eleven attractive girls in the brothel and half a dozen interesting men outside but at the end of two and half hours, you know very little about anybody except the brothel madam.

Also considering that it is a vulnerable time for the country and the brothel, the narrative should have gripped you emotionally engaging instead you remain cold and unaffected by the consequences.

Director Mukherji is visibly influenced by Shyam Benegal’s Mandi but while the 1983 release was both entertaining and path breaking, Begum Jaan is one tracked narrative devoid of real drama or emotion!Even the climax where the women collectively fight their oppressors from within the fortress is a pale protest compared to the fight put up by the spice girls in Ketan Mehta’s Mirch Masala.

Watch Begum Jaan only if you are an ardent fan of Vidya Balan. I rate Begum Jaan with 2.5 stars out of which half star is for Vidya Balan.

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