A must watch.

Grade: A-

Peepli Live

Indian Release Date: 13/08/10
CBFC Classification:  A
Running Length: 1 Hour 44 Minutes

Cast: Omkar Das Manikpuri, Raghuveer Yadav, Naseruddin Shah, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Shalini Vatsa, Farrukh Jaffer, Sitaram Panchal, Yugul Kishore, Vijay Crishna, Malaika Shenoy, Vishal O Sharma   
Director: Anusha Rizvi
Screenplay: Anusha Rizvi
Cinematography: Shankar Raman
Music: Indian Ocean & Mathias Duplessy

“You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it.” – Art Buchwald

An effective piece of satire is a thing of immense beauty in a world as subtle as a sledgehammer. Movies with long & preachy monologues delivered by obviously over-acting characters with sad-“designed to make you weep”-background scores do tend to get commonplace these days and hence loose their edge in spite of having the best of intentions. What former NDTV journalist, Anusha Rizvi does with her debut feature is create a stinging socio-political commentary laden in a coat of black humor which needs no theatrics to convince the audience of the point it’s trying drive home.

In the fictional village of Peepli, two brothers, Budhia (Raghuveer Yadav) and Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) are on the verge of losing their ancestral farmland to the bank. They have been unable to pay back their debt and like thousands of other hapless farmers from around the country they have no means of doing so either; until a local politician mockingly tells them to commit suicide in which case the government will pay their family a hefty (by their standards) compensation. Finding no other way out of their present conundrum, the dim-witted Natha takes on the mantle of committing the act. A local reporter, Rajesh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), picks up the story and within days it is the toast of the nation. Everyone from the media to the politicians to bureaucrats to even social activists capitalize on the situation to either further their own standing or to save their skins. So with the various maneuverings in which Natha is nothing more than a pawn will he go ahead with the suicide?

One of the most impressive points about the movie is its unnervingly realistic and tongue-in-cheek tone. Nothing is over-blown or even dramatized for gaining a sympathy vote from the audience. There is no deliberate attempt to elicit any tears through manipulation.   The apathy by all quarters including the government, media and all others is never made to look intently malicious but rather a sad & twisted reality of the way of life in India. This gives it a potent edge that makes it more identifiable & despicable to the audience than any over-the-top hankering could have achieved.

Like they say still water runs deep, the story's simplicity is only a cover-sheet for the den of decadence lying underneath, so keep up with all the political shenanigans and you'll find a wealth of metaphors and real-life incidents to compare with. Right from small mentions such as the name of the American company supplying seeds to the poor farmer, Hori Mahato, who’s lost his land and now toils away the entire day in a ditch digging up barren soil to sell it. We see his never ending cycle and the ditch growing deeper but no improvement in his condition; the scenes left a hauntingly poignant imprint on my psyche about the situation of not just the farmers but even the condition of the common man in India.  

Dialogues though laden with expletives seem very natural to the setting and the characters. Unfortunately thanks to the abusive words thrown about, the audience seemed to derive amusement more from them than the far more humorous situational barbs.      

The lampooning of media is strikingly sharp and witty. Even the treatment of the humor for Medias of different languages is effectively done. While the Hindi news channels bear the brunt of the more abrasive jokes in regards to their presentation and intention; the English media is shown to be more interested in appearing like “intellectuals” while they have little or no empathy towards the issue beyond garnering TRPs and maybe some goodwill as the “Crusaders of Justice”. The association of various media houses with political parties is well addressed here. The ruthlessness & superficiality with which they go about their job reflects the current state of reporting in India very aptly; like Nandita Malik (Malaika Shenoy) puts it across to Rajesh, who’s in the midst of an awakening of his conscience, “We are journalists, this is what we do.”.

The various elements of the government are not spared either with everyone from the ministers to the bureaucrats to local politicians and even the police. The inefficiency of the government officials who want to put up a façade of having done their “duty” (so no one can tell them otherwise) rather than actually be part of the solution is again a very accurate depiction of the ground reality.  

The movie captures the rustic essence of the village very authentically. The tone never looks to romanticize it but never makes it a grim and harsh place either. The songs are sparingly and smartly used, it also helps that each of the songs has a catchy tune with lyrics that have something to convey.

The one thing that falls short is the story itself; which beyond a certain point fails to develop convincingly. By concentrating on the various characters that flit in and out of the plot, the plot remains half-baked resulting in a climax that doesn’t do justice to what came before it. If anything all the running around in the end looks like a tamer version of the same ‘run-a-thons’ Priyadarshan usually reserves for his screwball comedies. For a movie that is pretty smart throughout the rushed climax leaves little impact though a certain mellow sadness does permeate thanks to all we saw before.

The acting by each of the cast members is top-notch. Newcomer Omkar Das Manikpuri as Natha plays the character like a little kid stuck in a life he wants escape from but is also dumbstruck like a ‘deer in the headlights’ with the spotlight being on him for the first time in his wretched life. Raghuveer Yadav is reliable as always and Naseruddin Shah is suitably slimy as the uptown politician. I guessed a few people he might mirror from real life, though I’ll leave it up to you to watch and decide. Special mention should go to Farrukh  Jaffer as Natha’s bed-ridden, bidi smoking , constantly complaining mother, whose natural acting reminded me of the similarly brilliant old cot-ridden lady from ‘Garam Hawa’ (1973).

This is not the first time the issue of the farmers has been raised in a movie, but it is the first time that jabs being thrown are at us as a nation and what we have come to today in the name of commercialization. None of the matter in the movie is preachy and for those of us expecting heavy emotional histrionics my advice would be to please stay away; for the rest who’d like to stare into a mirror of our socio-political and economic situation (a monster created by us the people) and derive a laugh or two, please watch ‘Peepli Live’. It may not change your life or the way you think but it’ll surely sow the seed of disgust if nothing else.    

Final Verdict: A brilliant & scathing satire that could have done with a better climax and some more plot development.

Grade: A-

- Movie Reviewed by Danish Bagdadi

| More...