Director Kabir Mehta and producer Suyash Barve are basking in the success of their film, Sadhu in Bombay. It won the Best Narrative Film award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival this year, and last year, it bagged Best Film at European Media Art Festival (EMAF).
The reason Sadhu in Bombay speaks to everyone in a familiar yet unknown way was aptly summed up by the EMAF jury. “Sometimes to get at the truth, you have to see eye to eye with the camera. But the winner of this year’s EMAF award shows that looking the camera in the eye and speaking directly can make the truth more complicated and difficult to face. For one thing, is the main character a real life subject or an actor? Is the director revealing reality or refabricating it? Is there even a difference in these distinctions?”
As a viewer, one is often left perplexed at the blurring lines between fiction and reality in the film, which belongs to the genre of docu-fiction. “The approach to a docu-fiction is interesting because you document some aspects of reality and lace the narrative with fictional elements,” says Mehta.
Art imitates life
The protagonist, Sadhu, is a rivetting character. Like the narrative, Sadhu shows myriad human traits. You empathise with him when he says, “The cost of sweat is blood around here. That’s what this city is.”
The play of light and shadows and the tenacious sound design by Sanal George add different layers and meaning to every frame. Mehta deftly and carefully captures not just the strained smiles of Sadhu in a ruthless city but also the undertone of the film that keep the audience hooked throughout.
Where did Mehta get the inspiration for Sadhu’s character from? “During my travels in India in 2013, I had the extraordinary experience of spending time with an aghori in Benaras. He was an utterly compelling character—cranky, theatrical, somewhat misogynistic—and yet strangely unforgettable. I became fascinated with the idea of planting this character in a city. His reactions to this unfamiliar milieu—which predominantly took shape in my imagination—created the background for the Sadhu we see in the film,” says Mehta.
The man Mehta met in Benaras left the latter thinking about similarities between filmmakers and people like Sadhu. “I began to draw parallels between sadhus and filmmakers, who, I recognise, are equally hypocritical, manipulative and unfazed by reality (case in point—me!). After this, it suddenly stuck me, what if these two characters meet?”
Satirical take
Barve, a filmmaker in his own right, dons the producer’s hat for Sadhu in Bombay . “It is a satirical take on life in the city and spotlights two characters, the filmmaker and his subject, one an unscrupulous conman trying to hustle his way to redemption and the other a seemingly innocuous documentarian, out to capture a story in full integrity. The film projects these two characters, then reverses roles almost imperceptibly, and finally questions the nature of recording, story-telling and manipulation of technology to create meaning.”
The film has been screened at several prestigious festivals, including Slamdance (U.S.), Ann Arbor (U.S.), Samawah Cinema (Iraq), and Rio De Janeiro International Film Festival (Brazil).
For Barve, the most rewarding moments were those when the tension between ‘the camera’ and ‘the characters’ was palpable. Mehta, on the other hand, has begun to understand the metaphysical nature of filmmaking. “I’ve learnt that through the lens of a camera, every moment is as fictional, as fabricated, and as authentic as a documentary.”
The writer is a filmmaker who is working on her independent filmand loves writing on films, food, travel and literature.
