A toiling journey...

It's an example of how a 9 minute film can leave you thinking for the next 90 minutes and more. Urgent, a short film which won the Best Short Film Award at the recentlyheld Digital Short Film Festival organised by International Cultural Exchange, Pune, tells the story of a man desperately looking for a toilet to empty his bowels, but is faced with many deterring difficulties before he reaches his destination. But Mithunchandra Chaudhari, the director, turns this hilarious premise into a darkly comic tale of the undistinguished, common man struggling to satisfy a need as basic as this, while the world around him goes about, rejoicing in it's power games, depriving him of one of the most fundamental facilities.
The protagonist has ordinariness stamped all over his being – from the unremarkable clothes he wears, his wide-eyed lost look, his diffident body language, down to his common-place name Raju. Perhaps, he's new to the city, we think. We find him at a multiplex in the city, visibly intimidated by the glamour around him. What adds to his misery is that he needs to go the loo. The men's loo is occupied and there begins his predicament.
His journey to the toilet, becomes an ordinary man's fight for survival. It is peppered with obstacles. Finally, just when the situation is bursting out of control, he lands in his society's common toilet. But his plight is far from over. The taps runs dry and there's someone thumping urgently at the toilet door.
What makes this seemingly simple, humorous story thought-provoking is the many socio-political references Chaudhuri has packed in as Raju travels from the high-end multiplex to his lower-middle class locality. He is pushed around by men, who think he's come in their way; he has to steal a rupee from the temple to afford the public loo (the non-living religious idol is richer than the common man); he is insulted and thrown out by an irritated toilet guard, who has had a fight with the much-hated outsider “Bihari”; he is humiliated by the beggar, because he doesn't have any money to spare, he has to stand waiting for a drive home right in front of a shop selling designer toilets and he's held back by the student's union to join their celebrations of a candidate's victory. The backdrop of the film is it's subtext. The city is getting on, too busy (or too immune?) to care about the inequalities, imbalances and disparities that somehow realign themselves into a seeming equilibrium amongst the chaos.
Meanwhile, the man who offers him a lift on his scooter has to take a detour as riots have erupted over the demolition of a mosque by anti-encroachment authorities. He comments, “They should bring down all mosques and temples and build toilets instead. The govt should campaign for “shitting-ground free cities” like it's doing in the villages”. This irony (Raju sits behind him holding his bowels) not only makes for much laughter, it's also a very piercing statement on the disparity between politics and the citizens' demands.
Some scenes are as funny as they are touching. The way Raju (a brilliant Vikas Patil) dreams of exchanging places with a poor boy shitting on the roadside, right in front of a wall announcing “ Don't use this place as a toilet” or the way his face smiles, while his eyes turn moist when he finally gets to use the toilet, makes us laugh as well as root for this underdog. The last frame is another cracker. “To whomsoever it may concern” says an insertion. It's a fitting conclusion to the tongue-in-cheek commentary on the general apathy of our socio-political system and its indifferent people.

Cinema that sears....

The only sensation one is left with after watching the movie Turtles Can Fly, directed by Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, is a stunned numbness, the kind one might feel after being hit unawares. The senses take time to recover and the pain comes in slowly. And it stays. Because the blow the film has delivered is invisible and noiseless, and thus, deeper.
Like most Iranian films, this a story told through the lives of children, most of them orphans, caught in Kurdish refugee camps on the Iraq-Turkey border. An impending US invasion on Iraq and the subsequent fall of Saddam Hussein looms large in the backdrop.
But Ghobadi is more interested in the consequences rather than causes. So, politics and history lurk in the background while their young, innocent victims fill the foreground, bearing physical and psychological evidence of destruction in the deformities and disabilities they carry.
But the treatment of the fact disturbs more than the fact. It's all treated like a normality, with humour and common banter accentuating a tragedy that's taken for granted. Ghobadi never once thumps the brutality of the human crisis in your face, but conveys the everyday-ness of the horror through casual conversations between characters, passing references in speech and sometimes, just blank stares in the children's eyes.
Soran, nicknamed Satellite (because he installs satellite dishes in the neighbourhood and translates war-related news to the refugees) is the adolescent leader, who has taken it upon himself to provide employment to the children by selling the mines they collect in the arm's market. He goes about his business as usual, hoping that the Americans will change things for the better, till Agrin and her armless, clairvoyant brother Henkov arrive in the camp with a blind child. Satellite is drawn to the girl and the horror of her personal past (she was raped as a minor by Iraqi soldiers who forced them out of their village; the child is her baby) echoes in the country's equally bleak future. By the time she kills herself and her baby, Saddam has fallen and the Americans have arrived promising a dreamland. But Satellite, now trusting the ancient wisdom of Hengov's doom-predicting prophecies more than the optimistic news broadcast through modern, Western technology, knows better. The last shot of the film is a blank frame, divested of all hope, a silent landscape hanging in fragile balance. It, quite aptly, leaves you speechless.

Though the film is a strong statement on the horrors of war, there are no loud moments of violence (except a dream-like...rather, nightmarish scene of torture), no dramatised tensions, no staggering climax. Yet, the impact is devastating. That is where the frightening beauty of Ghobadi's art lies...that, the understatement overwhelms, and the simply-told reality screams such complex, pressing issues of our times. If a whole generation of children are facing such atrocities of war as a way of life, we need to reconsider our faith in the sentience of the human race.

The second act

Yashpal Sharma clearly stands out on the sets of the short film he is shooting for, a few kilometers outside Pune. Resting on a chair, with only a pair of dark sunglasses shielding him the harshness of the afternoon sunrays, his towering personality can easily be spotted amidst the noise and clutter of the crew. So, what is a talented character actor from mainstream Bollywood doing in a non-descript village, on a terribly hot day, shooting for a short film, which won’t be released commercially? “See, all these new, young directors really want to do good work. I want to be a part of their efforts. And also, I’m an actor, I will act, whatever the format of the film is,” he says, referring to off-beat films like Frozen (Shivaji Chandrabhushan) and Butterfly Chase (Jahnu Barua), which he’s recently done.

Is there more creative satisfaction for this NSD graduate in roles in alternate cinema? Has mainstream Bollywood format failed to make use of his abundant talent?
“ Haan, yeh frustration toh ahin, magar adjust karna padta hain. Now it’s also a fact that I can’t look or dance like Shah Rukh Khan. But, definitely these lesser-known films satisfy the artiste in me much more than a Bollywood potboiler,” Sharma confesses. For him, doing plays with veterans like Makarand Sathe and Gulzar and doing a peripheral character role in an out-an-out entertainer like Singh is Kiing isn’t irreconcilable. “Balance rakhna padta hain. Paisa bhi toh kamana hain,” is his pragmatic explanation.

While he’s justifying his choice of films to us, a group of village children rush to flock him for autographs. “They’ve bought a CD of a film called Bhai, a Hindi translation of a Telegu film I did. They confirmed that I’m the same guy and have come to me only after seeing the proof,” he smiles. The children look up at him in awe, probably startled that this tough, Bollywood baddie is really a harmless, down-to-earth guy with a gentle smile and a charming rustic accent to his flawless Hindi. “Yes, I did make a few mistakes…2-3 films I regret doing. But I’m satisfied with most films I’ve done…however big or small the role was...be it Dhoop, Chameli or Apaharan,” he seems to be thinking aloud, while playfully obliging his young fans. And Lagaan? How did that change things for him? “It got me noticed. I didn’t have to run from one studio to another with my photos and portfolio in search of work after Lagaan….But most calls I got offered me the role of a villain,” he tells us. But hasn’t the portrayal of the villain in Bollywood evolved from being completely negative to having nuanced grey shades – thereby making it challenging? “Yes, the clear demarcation between negative and positive characters has blurred now. Heroes like Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor have started playing the bad guys. Stories with typical negative roles have nothing new to offer and these roles were coming my way. They don’t excite me anymore,” he says, clearly eager to shake off the stereotype.

Fortunately for him, Hindi cinema is changing. “If you go to see all the good films that have come in the recent past, they’re made by relatively new filmmakers. All these so far lesser-known guys are making excellent films. And the big guys are making bad films,” he jokes. But among the few good, exciting films on his plate rite now, there is a big name – David Dhawan. “I’m doing a film called Hook Ya Crook with him. You know, people have this image of Davidji, because he makes all those brainless comedies. But believe me, he’s one most intelligent film-maker and best human beings I’ve met in the industry. He knows what he’s doing,” he enthuses. So is this comedy going to be different? “Yes. It’s his most sensible film till date. It has people like Kay Kay Menon, Shreyas Talpade, John Abraham and so on. Maybe Davidji has realised that the taste of the audiences in comedies has changed, with films like Khosla ka Ghosla, Oye Lucky...doing well. He knows the pulse of the audience. I’m very excited about this film,” he reveals.

Another film he’s very kicked about is FTII alumnus Paresh Kamdar’s Johny Johny Yes Papa. “It will remind people of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves. I play the lead in the film,” he informs. The excitement on his face, when he talks about his forthcoming releases is enough to announce that an actor’s long-awaited time in the sun has finally come. “ Aur to aage bohot kaam karna hain. Abhi to andar kuch khalbali machi hain,” he signs off. Of course, we have no doubt that his very best is yet to come.