Film: Manto
Date: 21.09.2018
Writer-Director: Nandita Das
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Rasika Dugal
Background Score: Zakir Hussain
Editor: Sreekar Prasad
We have watched many biographies and many films on the partition but what makes writer-director Nandita Das’s biopic on Manto special is that it’s a biopic on a writer and that the film focuses on the most tumultuous four years in the writer’s life and that of the two countries he inhabits – India and Pakistan.
Manto is a widely read short story writer in Bombay who pens scripts for movies and disrupts shooting if changes are made in his script without approval. He also writes columns for newspapers and disconnects with editors who ask him to tone down his columns or negotiate on his fees.
He refuses to be a part of the Progressive Writers Association but relishes the company of other radical writers like Ismat Chugtai over endless cigarettes and whiskey pegs discussing burning issues.
Superstar of silent cinema Shyam dotes on the writer but as violence engulfs the nation there is a crack in their friendship and Manto makes the difficult decision to shift to Lahore, Pakistan but his heart aches for his friends and as time goes by, he is unable to find takers for his controversial writings.
His addiction to alcohol leads him to disaster but the great thinker even in abject poverty will not compromise on his writing.
Manto is lovingly cast and that stalwarts like Vinod Nagpal, Javed Akhtar, Rishi Kapoor and Paresh Rawal appear for a single scene speaks of their faith in the filmmaker.
Diligently researched and delicately designed the film travels you across two countries and many heartbreaks, gives you insights into Manto’s personal and professional relationships, his anger, empathy, pride, and pain.
From fiction to reality and back to the characters that consume Manto’s imagination Nandita Das weaves a seamless narrative of stories within stories skillfully conceived by an extraordinary man who in the worst calamities remained unbroken in spirit!
There are innumerable images that haunt you long after the film is over…The handwritten papers signed with Parker pen and sometimes pencil, the empty trains, desolate platforms of vintage India, the old media offices and the crowded bars filled with smoke and agitated conversations.
Innumerable moments that bring a lump to your throat…. When Manto shares that he would like to remain indebted to Bombay, when Shyam arrives in Pakistan and when Safia finally breaks down pushing the swing for her daughters.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui lives Manto with alarming honesty and Safia/Rasika Dugal and Shyam/ Tahir Raj Bhasin are the perfect foil for the volatile maverick.
Nandita excels in portraying the predictable as special so freedom by midnight is fireworks in the sky watched from Manto’s bedroom window and poetry/songs stumble quietly into the frame when Manto’s mind brims over with memories.
The only minus is the pace and the mood because even though there are flashes of the family man, the writer’s life is clearly devoid of color or cheer and after a point, the melancholy overwhelms you and perhaps that’s the intention of the filmmaker.
The first and the last scene stay with you for a long, long time…
Sensitive and achingly sincere Nandita Das at no point underestimate her audience and communicates with Manto devotees on a level she finds herself.
I rate the full of intrigue Manto with 3.5 stars.
Bhawana Somaaya/ @bhawanasomaaya