P and I caught the evening show of 'Peepli Live' today and came back disappointed.
It's a wasted opportunity. It's comedy all right and it's black to boot, but it's not a Black Comedy, which it could have been.
It could have become the Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (JBDY) that many reviewers have compared it too, but for me, it stops well short of that, because of a tragic flaw: during the course of the whole film, it doesn't bring a lump to your throat - not even once.
Let me try to explain what I mean, without giving any film details away.
First, the good stuff: Like all films that are researched, detailed, cast and produced well, it never strikes you as false at any point, even during a farcical scene in the second half, done a-la-the unforgettable Mahabharat scene in JBDY. Peepli also has many genuinely funny moments and the actors are all good.
The Peepli Live story, for those who've somehow managed to escape the media blitzkrieg that Aamir Khan has crafted over the last two months, has two main threads; the first, the proposed suicide of a desperately indebted farmer Natha, to collect the government compensation given to the family of the deceased, and the second, the shallow callousness of the media that turns this sad decision into a mad TRP tamasha.
While the film details both tracks well (the irony of government welfare schemes, the use of media by politicians and of everything by media, etc) it fails to make us FEEL the human tragedy in the darkly comic situations it shines its light on.
We laugh with some of the characters, and out loud at many of the characters, but during the entire course of the film, we are never forced to cry with them. If you don't do that in a dark cinema hall, during a dark comedy, something is seriously amiss. It's as if the medium of cinema has been criminally under-utilised.
When I came out at the end of the film, farmer suicides were still a distant, violent, dry reality. The callousness of the Indian electronic media was still an obvious and abstract truth, much like corruption in Indian society. I did not feel any greater emotional connect (in this case, shame/indignation) on either count after I saw the film.
During '3 Idiots', I FELT, at many points in the film, that the Indian education system had got the resounding slap it deserved, during 'Lage Raho Munnabhai', I FELT that Gandhi's ideals were indeed lost in today's India and after "JBDY", I FELT the helplessness of the two young men in the deep seated rot of our corrupt society.
During and after Peepli, I FELT nothing. I THOUGHT about a lot of things, but FELT nothing...ok...maybe a little cheated, but does that count?
My initial theory is that if you got to read the script before the film was made, you would see at least two very poignant moments; lump-in-the-throat stuff, which I believe, has been lost in it's interpretation on screen (one concerns another helpless villager of Peepli and the other, the local hindi reporter who breaks the Natha story -- saying any more would amount to a film spoiler, so I'll hold my peace for now...)
After everyone likely to read this blog has had a fair chance to watch the film, I will write on these two points in greater detail.
For now, having made my big point about the emotional dryness of the film, here are a few more two-bit observations:
- Without Aamir Khan's marketing savvy, the film would have simply not made it as far as it has, especially in terms of the fawning reviews that a section of Indian reviewers have been falling over each other to give. At the height of the IPhone craze, an irate Apple-basher remarked that if Steve Jobs decided to take his morning crap in a box one day and sell it, as long as it was packaged in a snow white Apple box, people would queue up all night to buy it :-) ( This does not mean I think the film is all crap, but I do think Aamir Khan is sitting in a place very similar to Jobs, only his IPhone 4 antenna fiasco is yet to happen) You've got to hand it to him for being such an effective marketeer, but as a buyer, I'll be more careful about stuff he gushes about in the future, especially when he's wearing the Producer's cap.
- Omkar Das (Natha), who has been much-feted in the media, is not, in my opinion, the best actor in the film; Raghubir Vadav (Budhia) is and Shalini Vatsa (Natha's wife Dhania), Vishal (Aaj Tak-type 'sansani' reporter Deepak) and Nawazuddin (local vernacular daily reporter Rakesh) are tied in the second spot.
- The Director, Anusha Rizvi, an ex-NDTV employee, is clearly more at home when detailing the media, than she is when fleshing out the political mileu or the plight of marginal farmers. The film tends heavily towards the former in the second half, and this is not in it's best interest.
- If you're planning to watch the film to hear the full "mehangayi dayan" song, don't. It's not featured in the film beyond the Mukhda!
My final verdict: I'm pissed off because it's a film that could have gone well beyond what it's finally achieved. It could have been a 4.5/5, and is probably worth at least a 3/5, but since it's let itself down, I'm feeling cussed enough to only give it a 2.5/5.
But watch it, all the same. Only, go with an intellectual appetite, not an emotional one.
