Rajkumar Rao had struck me as an actor in Kai Po Che (2013). While it helped that I loved the movie, the earnestness of his acting caught attention. And since then I have followed his growth as an actor with delight. While I have not seen many of movies, I nevertheless get chuffed by his choice of movies. So far he has not been distracted by big banners or big money at the cost of the quality of roles. At the same time his marketability has grown which means he would have some bargaining power and would not get marginalised over time. He seems to have found that special place in the largely mediocre Bollywood where he is able to do justice to his skills, and at the same time command an audience, the kind of space that only actors like Irfan Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui have been able to find. The best part is that all three of them are not great looking but you want to see them on screen.
So watching Newton with Rajkumar Rao in lead, with its quirky name, and with rave reviews had become mandatory. And I liked it. I am not using the superlative ‘loved’, and there is a reason which needs elaboration. Right now Bollywood is split into three kinds of movies - nonsense cinema which it has been always making and which it continues to make because it requires limited effort and sells readily. This segment makes for bulk of the output and is liked on a mass scale with endorsement from mainstream actors, primarily SRK and SK. Then there are movies by mainstream stars like Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar which are commercial but with stronger storyline. They tell a good, relevant story, but in a populist manner. The extent to which they are sugar-coated distances them from reality. And the third category is of hard-hitting stories, which can make one uncomfortable. These are usually slice-of-real-life, reflecting truer version of India. This category of movies has come into prominence over the last decade or two and is the most positive change for Bollywood. Such movies have championed the craft of movie-making. They do not insult intelligence and give emotional satisfaction. Movies such as Dor, Masaan, Kai Po Che, Lootera, Shor in the City, Do dooni Char etc. fall into this category. The key trait is that such movies keep story at the center and the story is not necessarily to please. I am deeply appreciative of such movies and of actors like Abhay Deol, Irfan Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Sheorey, Vijay Raaz, Nandita Das, Konkana Sen Sharma, Richa Chaddha, KK Menon, Shreyas Talpade, Sanjay Mishra, Pankaj Tripathi who have been the trailblazers.
Nevertheless, there is one problem. India is a large, diverse country with many problems - personal and social, as well as a wide set of milieu. Most of the new wave Bollywood now reaps this fertile field - by taking up a socio-cultural-political problem, or to look at a new milieu. So after a point, films such as Ugly, Titli, Raman Raghav and Badlapur start looking similar in that they put light on the dark, grotesque underbelly of a seemingly calm society. Or movies like Dum Laga ke Haisha, Tanu Weds Manu 2, Vicky Donor, Ishqiya, etc primarily celebrate capturing a new milieu with accurate characterisation, dialogues and mannerism. Or the favourite is to show a compendium of parallel stories. So after following such movies for some time, one starts to find a sameness. A totally new ground in terms of content or treatment is difficult to find. In contrast, Hollywood explores way more diverse fields which extend cinema as a craft in terms of story, acting, direction, sets, technology etc - Schindler’s List, Dunkirk, Dark Knight, Blade Runner and so many more.
Newton for me partly had the same problem - it was not actually breaking any new ground. Still it is to be liked for its honest portrayal. And for a novice mind like me, it is good to explore the layers of the movie subtly over time. The premise is similar - a satire on the state of affairs in the country. Here the context is elections - widely touted as our biggest achievement and a show of strength of our democracy; throwing in the issues of clash of idealism with cynicism, authoritarian mistreatment, voicelessness of the tribals, and short-sightedness of Western media. But all these are treated with a very light hand - absolutely no preaching, sermonising or even taking stands.
But for me the biggest strength of the movie is its play on cynicism. Cynicism is a concept which I grapple with and which will get a separate blog post. This movie first takes you on a cynical ride and then mocks you for being a cynic. The central character Newton is an idealist who wants to go absolutely by the book while conducting polls in a makeshift booth in interiors of Maoist land with only a handful of registered voters - mostly tribals. So despite constant refrains, he would personally go there (and not let some cop go and get the votes), set up a proper polling booth, educate all voters on the sanctity of the process, run the polling station till the prescribed hour, and fight with his life to not lose even two votes. After a while, you actually start thinking he is going too far. What is he going to achieve? You stop feeling for him and think he deserved the thrashing he got for being such a pain. What exactly will he achieve by lecturing those tribals on the virtues of democracy and polling? You start to side with the security head - Aatma Singh for being practical. And if the viewers felt like this, the movie says that the joke is on you.
Nearer home, one questions the purpose of such elections. What exactly will be achieved by conducting a fair election when the voters have no clue of the contestants, of the process, and of the consequences? They have a simple life and would just want lesser atrocities from authorities. But the cause and effect of a fair election and democracy hardly seem to apply to them. Will their lives get any better even if the elections were held fairly? Isn’t the process of election here more a case of man-with-the-hammer, of senseless application of a placebo. The desperation of Newton for fairness, which grows over the length of the movie, reaches farcical proportions. What is Newton trying to achieve here? And what exactly did he achieve? We do not know if the electoral sanctity is maintained at the end - the votes could have been tampered with after Newton is beaten. But then Newton is not foolish! Can’t he see what all of us can see? He can, but he has decided to take a stand. He is not a hero, he is just standing for the right without thinking about the consequences. That is where he is showing others off - that the line between right and wrong is not as smudged as we want to believe and that right is worth standing for for its own sake - to escape it by giving the argument of it being inconsequential is to take the easy way out.
Nevertheless, the film also suggests a lighter hand, a patient, wise approach through Malko. Malko too is an idealist, but her idealism is tempered. She suggests to Newton - “Change takes time, jungle took years to grow.” Yes, that too, but the problem is that there is greater danger of cynicism creeping in over the years. Malko also poses this question - to all who care to listen - how well do we know this country. Newton has no clue, and Malko is used to this neglect, of this callous approach.
The writing and dialogues are taut and crisp. My favourite was when Newton questions, ‘Aap ashawadi hain yah nirashawadi?’ and Malko replies ‘Main aadivasi hoon’. Translating into English would rob the beautiful wordplay. The bit role by Sanjay Mishra too is a gem, especially the message he gives on the profound social impact of Isaac Newton’s work - it takes vision to understand past with such clarity. In fact the movie shows him to be the older version of Newton - one senses a natural connection between them. His argument that you are not doing a favour to the country by being sincere and honest, while resonating with Newton’s character, is at contrast with almost everything else in the movie. Converting name from Nutan to Newton established the anti-establishment nature of the central character brilliantly. Or the name of Aatma Singh - was he reflecting the true soul of this country which is cynical, and is Newton standing for something foreign to us?
I would not call out anybody’s acting in particular. Rajkumar Rao, though good, has done what he is easily capable of doing. He gives the automaton appearance, the restlessness, and the fire in the belly quite easily. Pankaj Tripathi too appears to be on easy ground here. But then again, all this is testimony to the skills of these actors.
The problems shown in the movie are wide, multifarious and messy - with long lineage. One can make many sequels or versions of such a movie, but still not achieve much more. At the end, the movie leaves thoughts and questions in your mind. The answers are tough, personal or non-existent.
So watching Newton with Rajkumar Rao in lead, with its quirky name, and with rave reviews had become mandatory. And I liked it. I am not using the superlative ‘loved’, and there is a reason which needs elaboration. Right now Bollywood is split into three kinds of movies - nonsense cinema which it has been always making and which it continues to make because it requires limited effort and sells readily. This segment makes for bulk of the output and is liked on a mass scale with endorsement from mainstream actors, primarily SRK and SK. Then there are movies by mainstream stars like Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar which are commercial but with stronger storyline. They tell a good, relevant story, but in a populist manner. The extent to which they are sugar-coated distances them from reality. And the third category is of hard-hitting stories, which can make one uncomfortable. These are usually slice-of-real-life, reflecting truer version of India. This category of movies has come into prominence over the last decade or two and is the most positive change for Bollywood. Such movies have championed the craft of movie-making. They do not insult intelligence and give emotional satisfaction. Movies such as Dor, Masaan, Kai Po Che, Lootera, Shor in the City, Do dooni Char etc. fall into this category. The key trait is that such movies keep story at the center and the story is not necessarily to please. I am deeply appreciative of such movies and of actors like Abhay Deol, Irfan Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Sheorey, Vijay Raaz, Nandita Das, Konkana Sen Sharma, Richa Chaddha, KK Menon, Shreyas Talpade, Sanjay Mishra, Pankaj Tripathi who have been the trailblazers.
Nevertheless, there is one problem. India is a large, diverse country with many problems - personal and social, as well as a wide set of milieu. Most of the new wave Bollywood now reaps this fertile field - by taking up a socio-cultural-political problem, or to look at a new milieu. So after a point, films such as Ugly, Titli, Raman Raghav and Badlapur start looking similar in that they put light on the dark, grotesque underbelly of a seemingly calm society. Or movies like Dum Laga ke Haisha, Tanu Weds Manu 2, Vicky Donor, Ishqiya, etc primarily celebrate capturing a new milieu with accurate characterisation, dialogues and mannerism. Or the favourite is to show a compendium of parallel stories. So after following such movies for some time, one starts to find a sameness. A totally new ground in terms of content or treatment is difficult to find. In contrast, Hollywood explores way more diverse fields which extend cinema as a craft in terms of story, acting, direction, sets, technology etc - Schindler’s List, Dunkirk, Dark Knight, Blade Runner and so many more.
Newton for me partly had the same problem - it was not actually breaking any new ground. Still it is to be liked for its honest portrayal. And for a novice mind like me, it is good to explore the layers of the movie subtly over time. The premise is similar - a satire on the state of affairs in the country. Here the context is elections - widely touted as our biggest achievement and a show of strength of our democracy; throwing in the issues of clash of idealism with cynicism, authoritarian mistreatment, voicelessness of the tribals, and short-sightedness of Western media. But all these are treated with a very light hand - absolutely no preaching, sermonising or even taking stands.
But for me the biggest strength of the movie is its play on cynicism. Cynicism is a concept which I grapple with and which will get a separate blog post. This movie first takes you on a cynical ride and then mocks you for being a cynic. The central character Newton is an idealist who wants to go absolutely by the book while conducting polls in a makeshift booth in interiors of Maoist land with only a handful of registered voters - mostly tribals. So despite constant refrains, he would personally go there (and not let some cop go and get the votes), set up a proper polling booth, educate all voters on the sanctity of the process, run the polling station till the prescribed hour, and fight with his life to not lose even two votes. After a while, you actually start thinking he is going too far. What is he going to achieve? You stop feeling for him and think he deserved the thrashing he got for being such a pain. What exactly will he achieve by lecturing those tribals on the virtues of democracy and polling? You start to side with the security head - Aatma Singh for being practical. And if the viewers felt like this, the movie says that the joke is on you.
Nearer home, one questions the purpose of such elections. What exactly will be achieved by conducting a fair election when the voters have no clue of the contestants, of the process, and of the consequences? They have a simple life and would just want lesser atrocities from authorities. But the cause and effect of a fair election and democracy hardly seem to apply to them. Will their lives get any better even if the elections were held fairly? Isn’t the process of election here more a case of man-with-the-hammer, of senseless application of a placebo. The desperation of Newton for fairness, which grows over the length of the movie, reaches farcical proportions. What is Newton trying to achieve here? And what exactly did he achieve? We do not know if the electoral sanctity is maintained at the end - the votes could have been tampered with after Newton is beaten. But then Newton is not foolish! Can’t he see what all of us can see? He can, but he has decided to take a stand. He is not a hero, he is just standing for the right without thinking about the consequences. That is where he is showing others off - that the line between right and wrong is not as smudged as we want to believe and that right is worth standing for for its own sake - to escape it by giving the argument of it being inconsequential is to take the easy way out.
Nevertheless, the film also suggests a lighter hand, a patient, wise approach through Malko. Malko too is an idealist, but her idealism is tempered. She suggests to Newton - “Change takes time, jungle took years to grow.” Yes, that too, but the problem is that there is greater danger of cynicism creeping in over the years. Malko also poses this question - to all who care to listen - how well do we know this country. Newton has no clue, and Malko is used to this neglect, of this callous approach.
The writing and dialogues are taut and crisp. My favourite was when Newton questions, ‘Aap ashawadi hain yah nirashawadi?’ and Malko replies ‘Main aadivasi hoon’. Translating into English would rob the beautiful wordplay. The bit role by Sanjay Mishra too is a gem, especially the message he gives on the profound social impact of Isaac Newton’s work - it takes vision to understand past with such clarity. In fact the movie shows him to be the older version of Newton - one senses a natural connection between them. His argument that you are not doing a favour to the country by being sincere and honest, while resonating with Newton’s character, is at contrast with almost everything else in the movie. Converting name from Nutan to Newton established the anti-establishment nature of the central character brilliantly. Or the name of Aatma Singh - was he reflecting the true soul of this country which is cynical, and is Newton standing for something foreign to us?
I would not call out anybody’s acting in particular. Rajkumar Rao, though good, has done what he is easily capable of doing. He gives the automaton appearance, the restlessness, and the fire in the belly quite easily. Pankaj Tripathi too appears to be on easy ground here. But then again, all this is testimony to the skills of these actors.
The problems shown in the movie are wide, multifarious and messy - with long lineage. One can make many sequels or versions of such a movie, but still not achieve much more. At the end, the movie leaves thoughts and questions in your mind. The answers are tough, personal or non-existent.
No comments:
Post a Comment