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| Writer/director Sandhya Suri |
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| 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.
