Santosh

 

Writer/director Sandhya Suri

Director with lead cast at Cannes

SANTOSH                 B                                                                                                               India  Germany  France  Great Britain  (120 mi)  2024  ‘Scope  d: Sandhya Suri

There are two types of untouchables in this country.  Those that no one wants to touch.  And those who no one is allowed to touch.                                                                                           —Geeta Sharma (Sunita Rajwar)

More than 1000 Indian movies are filmed every year, most of which are never seen outside the borders.  In artistic terms, India had its great moment with the world renowned Satyajit Ray in the 1950’s, (Satyajit Ray: 5 essential films), maker of the Apu Trilogy (1955 – 1959), but since Ray’s death in 1992, Indian cinema has never shined again with that same artistic fervor, mostly churning out Bollywood musical comedies to great commercial success, though directors such as Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta, and Asif Kapadia have made films set in India but with North American and/or European producers.  Only recently has there been signs of something changing, with a rise of female directors offering their own unique insight, like Leena Yadav’s PARCHED (2015), Rohena Gera’s SIR (2018), or more recently Payal Kapadia’s 2024 Top Ten List #3 All We Imagine as Light (Prabhayay Ninachathellam).  Ten years in the making, Suri’s film started out as a documentary before transitioning to her feature debut, following in those same footsteps, adding a different perspective than what we’re used to seeing.  The death of a murdered teenage Dalit girl after a heinously brutal rape in rural Northern India bears some similarity to the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder, where a young woman was viciously beaten and gang raped by several men on a bus, which brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets in protest, demanding quicker trials and harsher punishments, but the violence has continued unabated.  Sandhya Suri is a British-Indian writer/director based in London, studying documentary film at The National Film and Television School, where her earlier films were documentaries, so this is her first feature, a searing social critique arising out of the Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Lab, premiering at Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2024, allegedly inspired by this real-life 2012 incident, stemming from her outrage at what happened, bringing to light uncomfortable issues of police brutality, caste discrimination, misogyny, Islamophobia, and rampant government corruption, where pervasive violence against women is not just seen in an Indian context, but becomes a universal theme that is just hard to turn away from.  In India, around 85 to 90 rapes are reported every day, or putting it bluntly, One woman reports a rape every 15 minutes in India, but keep in mind that these are just the reported cases, as India is a country where it is estimated that 99% of crimes remain unreported, largely due to fear, stigma, and a general lack of trust in the police.  The right wing Bharatiya Janata Party’s Censor Board, largely supported by the upper castes, objected to the movie’s unfiltered depiction of lawlessness, corruption, and racial abuse in India, particularly in the Hindi heartlands, believing it does not reflect well on their voter base, so the film has been banned from screening in India, including digital platforms.  There are very few forensic labs in India, which remains a country run by men, as most of the judges are men, with only a 22% success rate in rape convictions, according to the annual report of the Ministry of Home Affairs, statistics that do not take into account rapes ending in murder and attempted rape, which are counted separately, which means the justice system fails to secure a conviction at trial for roughly 4 out of every 5 victims, so crimes against women are taken less seriously, where the police investigations lack professionalism and sensitivity.   

While that is the backdrop of the film, the story is told in a social realist style starring Santosh Saini (Shahana Goswami) as a newly widowed woman whose police officer husband was killed during a riot when a rock struck his head.  Facing the scorn and financial ruin of her family and bitter in-laws, as she married for love against their will, quickly removing her from an apartment that was provided by the state due to her husband’s police work, yet it’s clear neither family wants to take on the burden of a near-thirty-year old widow, with her mother-in-law actually blaming her for her son’s death, berating her, “You are used dishes.  Who wants you back?”  She attempts to obtain her husband’s meager pension, only having been with the force for two years, instead discovering that she inherits her husband's police position out of financial necessity under an archaic "compassionate appointment" scheme, where she is trained to take his place in an overwhelmingly male police station in rural Northern India, quickly growing used to how normalized it is to accept bribes, while derogatory remarks towards women and indiscreet insults are also part of everyday life, with the police uniform becoming an unlikely tool for liberation and emancipation.  When a low-caste 15-year old girl is found raped, murdered, and dumped in a well, part of India’s “untouchable” community, Santosh grows frustrated at how no one takes the crime seriously, completely ignoring her existence, as her cruelly dismissive superior refuses to allow her to assist the illiterate father’s attempt to file a complaint after his initial missing person’s report was completely ignored, yet the discovery of the body days later ignites protests in her community, so in response to the negative publicity, the charismatic and extremely pragmatic female inspector Sharma (Sunita Rajwar) is chosen to lead the criminal investigation, with Santosh assigned to work under her.  She is immediately fascinated by Sharma’s ability to ingratiate herself into the masculine culture of the station while seemingly remaining a fierce advocate against gendered violence in public.  Sharma, meanwhile, spots Santosh’s keen intelligence and ambition and offers to mentor her, with the filmmaker blending a journalistic attention to procedural detail, slowly and expertly building tension as evidence and characters are revealed in a world of uncertainty, with an empathetic rendering of Santosh’s internal conflicts, as she seeks professional advancement and respect from her peers while clinging to moral ethics in a system that prioritizes suspect confessions and convictions by any means.  This disquieting film exposes an alarming number of femicides, becoming an indictment of all the scars and wounds of society, where innocence is destroyed by widespread violence and corruption.  While the focus is on the intense observation of Santosh, who is something of a blank slate, a sponge absorbing everything that she sees, a reflection of her own idealistic hopes and values contrasted against the much older Sharma, a seasoned veteran who has already had to navigate her way through the male patriarchy, yet it is through those more experienced eyes, conveyed in the smallest inflections, that viewers are able to understand the depth and scope of the compromised system both women struggle against.

What distinguishes this film is the ruminative way that it is filmed, an under-the-surface, psychological study of the world that presents itself to Santosh, a compelling neo-noir morality tale that holds itself up as a mirror to contemporary India, yet what’s immediately recognizable is the ostracization of the underclass, where the economically disadvantaged are always blamed for everything, where the system of justice doesn’t really work for them, while those in the higher caste are untouchable, as police refuse to charge them and hold them accountable, so their crimes go unpunished.  It mirrors the Jeffrey Epstein case in America, a convicted sex trafficker of underage girls who was enabled by rich and powerful figures who have never been charged, or even questioned, about their roles in a sordidly vile operation which couldn’t have happened without their assistance.  As of this date, the other hidden perpetrators also remain untouchable, so this is not unique to India.  Following an alleged Muslim suspect who befriended the girl and comes from the same lower caste, this plays out like a tense whodunit, with authorities moving in to make an arrest, but rather than transfer him to a police station, he is moved to an abandoned house where he is questioned under relentless torture, which includes extensive beatings and waterboarding.  Under pressure, Santosh is handed a paddle and beats him as well, but suffers a panic attack afterwards, plagued by guilt at the thought that he might be innocent.  Acting on her suspicions, she checks his smartphone which reveals he was in another city at the time of the girl’s death, exonerating him from the crime, but authorities report he hung himself during the night, serving as a scapegoat instead of the real murderer.  One of the most chilling scenes is when Santosh interviews the upper class men who casually dismiss any involvement, yet the incident happened on their grounds, in their well, while dead domesticated animals are routinely dumped into the wells of nearby lower-caste villagers to contaminate their water supply and assert caste superiority.  The girl may have just wanted fresh water, paying for it with her life.  Their smugness is despicable, blaming her femininity for even questioning them, suggesting men know better, with one of them even asking what she would do if he were guilty, literally taunting her powerlessness.  This horrid behavior is unforgettable, revealing the true nature of just what kind of men they really are, capable of crossing any line and getting away with it.  Released at the same time as Konstantin Bojanov’s THE SHAMELESS (2024), a Swiss-Bulgarian production that studies two women in the Indian caste prostitution system, with both films having a similar premise, that the true untouchables are the powerful, while it also recalls Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River (2017), which exposes the violent crimes against Native American women in America.  Sharma has her own outlook, believing the publicity this case generated would make anyone think twice about committing this kind of offense again, even if their suspect was innocent.  While that may seem like a sensible go-along and get-along approach, it’s also morally reprehensible, with Santosh literally distancing herself from this fiasco.  Ambiguous to the core, never explaining anything or providing easy answers, allowing viewers to make their own judgments as it’s happening, the film provides an unflinching look at how vulnerable marginalized communities are continually dehumanized by those in power.

Gazelle

 

Director Nadir Saribacak

co-writer/actor Ayhan Hülagü

GAZELLE          B                                                                                                                  USA  (103 mi)  2025  d: Nadir Saribacak            co-director: Samy Pioneer

Exile is only the beginning.

Nadir Saribacak is one of the co-founders of studio garage, a New Jersey–based Turkish-American group producing work for both American and Turkish audiences, creating original film and theater projects rooted in an original narrative form that brings together storytelling, puppetry, and visual imagination, while also offering acting classes shaped by its own artistic approach.  Believing that theater is a “laboratory,” he describes his work as “carefully removing each layer of the character,” emphasizing that he has learned from each layer, writing the script while he was driving a taxi at night, accentuating his ability to handle complex, demanding characters while emphasizing his talent in avoiding stereotypes.  Making his first feature, the writer/director/lead actor is known for his performance in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep (Kis uykusu) (2014), winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes.  Reminiscent of the early Dardennes Brothers movie LA PROMESSE (1996), which deals with exploited undocumented immigrants, this is an immigration-themed drama inspired by lived experiences of exile and displacement, as the film unfolds as an intimate psychological drama of separation, resilience, and the fragile terrain of a separated family.  Co-directed by Samy Pioneer, who also edits, written by Saribacak and Ayhan Hülagü, one of only a handful of living artists trained in traditional Turkish theater, while shot by Danish cinematographer Lasse Ulvedal Tolbøll, the film puts the director front and center as the lead character, telling the poignant story of Yakup (Nadir Saribacak), an educated man, a devoted father and beloved music teacher who leaves his wife Ayşe (Emine Bayindir) and five-year-old daughter Neşe (Sarah Aydogan) behind to seek refuge in the United States to avoid arrest from the political unrest in Turkey.  Finding himself alone and undocumented, determined to bring his family to safety, he starts a new life in New York, largely defined by working in the cramped quarters of a kabob kitchen with other undocumented immigrants, always seen in confined spaces, where they all share similar circumstances.  Opening in a mosque in New York, the Imam tells the congregation the well-known tale of the gazelle from folklore, recalling the story of the pregnant animal facing predators and hunters, which serves as a powerful metaphor for the extreme emotional and physical hardships he is forced to endure.  As the Imam preaches, we see the pain etched on Yakup’s face, accompanied by the background sounds of his terrifying journey from Turkey to Greece on a crowded boat, a pivotal moment that powerfully frames the tragedy into which the character finds himself.

Tens of thousands of people in Turkey were forced into exile, where Yakup is just one among many, as his world has been turned upside down, with the film balancing the hopes of the future against the horrors of the past, which have a way of creeping into the present.  In the United States, the system is so broken that it breeds predators, making the lives of desperate people susceptible to even more terrible tragedies.  He is told right away that legal reunification could take years, leaving Yakup torn between waiting and taking the risk of illegal migration.  To fund the journey, he works multiple jobs while secretly arranging with a smuggler.  At work, he shares heartbreaking moments on his phone via video calls, having to endure hearing his wife’s tears while also trying to teach his daughter a song for her upcoming school concert, as he struggles to find time at work to rehearse singing “You Are My Sunshine,” CHRISTINA PERRI - YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE [Lyric Video] YouTube (1:23).  Fortunately he is surrounded by a community of immigrants, many of whom have already gone through what he’s experiencing in bringing their families to America, offering him a supportive perspective while pursuing the American Dream, but it’s a harrowing ordeal for his family, whose scared and threatened lives are crumbling without him, as they really have no support system.  This drives him to desperation, where these endless sacrifices he’s forced to make strain his mental health, causing a huge physical and psychological toll.  While migration provides the backdrop, this is clearly a human story, a psychological drama where the rhythm of the film is established by regular patterns at mind-numbing work, social interactions with coworkers, and the latest updates on his quest to smuggle his family out of Turkey, whose lives are placed in even greater danger as the Turkish police close in for questioning.  Ayşe seems unwilling to risk their daughter’s life in attempting such a dangerous passage at sea, but they seem to have little choice, with Yakup urging her to understand that paying smugglers for help in their desperate escape may be the only way, but she’s not convinced.  Part of what works is how the story is told, as we see how agitated Yakup is most of the time, trying to stay calm, but always having to endure seemingly endless setbacks, as frustration mounts with each passing day, while the family abroad is barely seen on the phone, but we hear them, often repeating the phrase, “We’re fine, don't worry,” yet viewers know otherwise, and can only infer what they’re actually going through. 

Mostly shot in a social realist style, the film describes the deep pain caused by displacement, the uncertainty of migration, and the effort to hold on to hope, but the quickly unraveling circumstances leads Yakup to take a second job, the well-paid but physically exhausting demand of working with marble as a stone mason, all in an attempt to pay the high price for smugglers to get his family out of Turkey.  Co-writer Ayhan Hülagü has a dual role in front of the camera, playing Adem, a former student of Yakup’s in Turkey, who is also his immigration lawyer and confidante in New York.  Yakup is simply overwhelmed by things he cannot control, confused and disheartened by the lack of legal options, while completely exhausted by the neverending cycle of work and his pressing need to earn money fast, literally consumed by the lack of options, losing a grip on his unsettling inner world, so he’s not always thinking clearly.  The pace of the film increasingly ratchets up the tension, using an unsettling sound design that becomes ominously intense, while veering into unnecessary melodrama near the end that is a stark difference from the realist aesthetic, feeling forced and overly contrived when it all tragically comes together at the exact same moment in time, increasingly raising the stakes, heightening the extreme drama, where it appears designed to tug at the heartstrings.  When you employ shady smuggling operators, things rarely go as planned.  Add to that the precariousness of escaping refugees, and the harrowing journey that awaits them, where any number of things could go wrong, as accidental deaths are a regular occurrence.  Viewers are immersed in the hopelessness that Yakup feels at such a distance, halfway across the world, unable to intervene when things invariably go wrong, feeling mentally and physically battered from all sides, where just like the mythical folk tale told at the beginning, gazelles rarely escape their predators.  It’s a cautionary tale, disturbing and psychologically unnerving, yet it places an issue that is dominating the headlines directly in front of viewers, providing a human face, a nuanced and compelling figure who is trying to do all the right things, but he’s caught up in a web of dehumanizing confusion where the conventional immigration system is already cluttered with bureaucratic red tape, causing heartbreaking setbacks and delays, which only places family members that stay behind in even greater peril.  To those that disappear, we simply never hear from them again.  What this films reveals is how trauma transforms people, eloquently painting a bleak picture with no easy answers, bringing desperate lives into focus, while offering a visceral understanding of the life or death stakes involved.