More than six decades after the lines were drawn in Punjab; Partition continues to haunt our psyche. Anup Singh gives shape to the ghost through a fable that makes us look at the divisions within. It is one of most violent stories that one has come across in recent times but the violence doesn’t emanate from the blows or facial contortions but the silence of the characters and the meditative nature of the screenplay.
Made in Punjabi and released with English subtitles, it unfolds like a contemplative poem. The first sound that sets the haunting tone is of a lady humming. It continues to return through the film every time creating an eerie feeling making one feeling guilty of the position Kanwar (Tillotama Shome) is in. The fourth wall seldom falls in cinemas these days but watching Kanwar squirm in her body denudes us much before she does on screen.
Kanwar is the fourth daughter of Umber Singh (Irrfan), a brooding patriarch hit by Partition and his obsession for a male child. Umber believes that he disengaged with the roots when he threw the body of a Muslim in the well of the village he has migrated from. It poisoned the well for the new inhabitants but what about the poison he carried within. What about the divisions within. Anup tackles Umber’s inherent rancour with reticence.
Umber raises Kanwar as a boy, makes her ignore menstrual cycle as arrival of manhood, trains her with a wrestler, takes her for hunting and finally marries her to a girl called Neeli (Rasika Duggal). Neeli is from lower caste and is besotted to Kanwar. Kanwar gives in because the closeness to father gives her a special status among the other females in the family. But for how long she can live in denial when she has to deal with her gender in her bedroom. Her mother (Tisca Chopra) leaves her to her father for by sacrificing her she could protect the other three.
Those who have grown up on the spoon feeding of Bollywood will take time to come to terms to this genre bending tale. It deals with the partitions within and tells us once we get over the inherent divisions of gender and caste that we will be able to tackle the geographical partitions. When Neeli discovers the true identity of Kanwar, her gender ceases to matter. But for Umber it still does. He now wants a grandson. Grotesque! Indeed. On the surface even before you begin to question the logic behind Umber’s creepy delusion, Anup smoothly navigates from real to surreal making the lonely ghost leap at us.
Put together by a largely foreign technical crew, after a point the mood oscillates between ethereal and theatrical with cinematographer Sebastian Edschmind using sharp lighting but the performance and the language ensures that the poesy frames don’t distract us from the stark reality of the violent times we live in.
Irrfan responds to the subtle cues provided by the script to shape Umber as a strange mix of violent yet sympathetic man, creatures we often find in patriarchal societies. But it is Tillotama who is the tour de force of this fable. From the struggle with her identity to making gender irrelevant, it is a seamless performance that is going to stay with us for a long time. Rasika complements her well as the feisty girl who stands up to her father-in- law.
It is not your bread and butter but a diet that you must develop a taste for.
Bottomline : A fantastic attempt to put to rest the ghosts of the past where performances are more persuasive than the poesy direction.
