Sheitan - The Contrarian Corner

A look at the trailer of Shaitan is good enough to arouse the curiosity of anyone who is enthused by decent film making, subject to tolerance of often debated subjects like drugs, alcohol, violence etc. (Kashyap does a responsible job of cautioning the audience that the film in no way endorses the usage of above). And of course, a catch phrase like “Discover your inner Shaitan” is enough to get you to your spot in the multiplex.

The film begins promisingly, establishing the identities and mannerisms around the bunch of spoilt kids (most urban youth can identify with) who seem to be destined to achieve the film’s manifesto. The scene where Amy meets KC and the two open ‘a joint account’, promises fun and gives you a hint of where the film is headed for the next 20 minutes.

However, as the film progresses, the film is plagued by the ever-existing syndrome of the lack of depth and purposefulness in the script. One can’t help but notice the striking similarities between Shaitan and Paanch (Kashyap’s directorial debut) simply for the way the film moves. While Shaitan had the potential of reaching out to the larger sects of audience (thanks to the censor related troubles of Paanch), it only ends up being a stylishly executed mediocre script having performed decently on most other criterion.

With due regards to the sympathy for the first-time director, it is difficult to ignore so many obvious flaws in the film. Pretty much everything in the film took off well, but ended up going nowhere. From character building to plot development, most parts of the film (even the best ones like the shootout and the chase) merely seemed to be there to exhibit the director’s eagerness to put them in there, rather than essentially relating to the nucleus of the plot.

Perhaps, it is a little harsh to say that, but really, where was the inner Shaitan. And who’s inner Shaitan were they trying to portray. The whole chain of events that land the gang in trouble seemed to be inspired more by fear, chaos and naivety, than thoughtful capers originating from a demonic brain. Some (and not all) bloopers I can recall at this point are:

·     The scene where KC pushes Amy from the terrace into the pool as a test of her ‘Bharosa’ is a serious violation of the laws of physics. The height from which Amy was pushed must have been 30 ft at the least, into a pool of what 11 ft? If Nambiar was so particular abt this scene, they might as well have shot it around some cliff to respect its plausibility.

·     Amy – Till the end, the reasons for her untimely perturbed behavior weren’t sufficiently explained. The scene where she goes out for dinner with her folks and pulls her timid act didn’t quite gel with the flow of the film. Not that it seemed relevant in any way. Besides, Amy’s character turns psychotic at will to help the cause of her mommy’s plot which demanded bail outs every now and then. Also difficult to fathom is the vindication of her being let free after she murders Dash.

The Mummy Returns

·     The stunning silence of Khandelwal’s wife. May be she was in fact under the spell of some inner Shaitan, but that really needed some intervention.

·    The 3 characters – KC, Dash and Parsi were again an extension of the director’s unwillingness to take it deeper. They showed moments of brilliance alright and were extremely well acted out too (special mention for Gulshan Devvaiah as KC). But again, just when the director was expected to unleash the Shaitan, he decides to squander it aimlessly. The scene where they try and strike a deal with the cop was indeed setting it up wonderfully, just to fade into unwarranted chaos and beat around the bush routine. Dash was the most underutilized characters of the lot. So underutilized that Nambiar didn’t even bother to explain the relevance of his death. Nor does he give a hint to whether he was truly ill-intentioned.

The film wasn’t bad at all, if you were benchmarking it against the industry standards. The mood setting music, camera work and editing are extremely commendable. So is the performance of mostly fresh actors. The list of Khandelwal’s followers is likely to increase manifold as he does a magnificent job as a troubled and bad-ass cop.  Raj Kumar Yadav as the corrupt cop is quite convincing too.

But, the cast is stronger than the characters they play. Also, when we already associate terms like path breaking and trend- defining with the film, there are a number of concerns to be dealt with.

In the last decade or so, the film industries in India (across states) have expressed the need and witnessed the emergence of better processing of films on technical grounds. Lot more emphasis and quality goes into aspects like cinematography, editing, sound engineering and background score etc along with the growth of media schools that offer proficiency in these spheres. However, despite the academic training for the prospects of the industry, the scripts continue to suck. The causes for this are usually tied back to the number of corrections and adaptations made to the original script, but that wasn’t the case here as Nambiar wrote the film himself.

Luke Morrison - This satan was no poser

The film indeed is bold about aspects like drug abuse, alcohol and publicly watchable levels of homosexuality. But, haven’t we seen this a number of times already? At least 3 films of Anurag Kashyap have portrayed explicit usage of drugs and alcohol etc. Paanch (a film you should definitely watch if you’re looking for that inner Sheitan) with the aspiring members of a rock band, Abhay Deol rolling and snorting coke in Dev D and chaps doing pot in Gulaal scream out loud ‘the been there, done that’ story. Unlike the other two, Dev D was quite commercial and went out to massive audience. Other mass audience films like Dum Maaro Dum have done their share of patrolling too. Films like Love, Sex Aur Dhokha have also gained sufficient cognizance to push the acceptance extents of the Censor Board a fair bit.

The concern though is how fruitful is the whole exercise? It does help the makers in connecting with the niche sect of audience, but in the context of this film, there is nothing judicious about it. In fact, its basic purpose is just for Nambiar to establish himself amongst the league of the neo-noir film makers around.

It would be quite unfair to term the film a disappointment because relatively, the film is still quite a standout. It has brilliant moments that a lot of other cliché films are still far from. But again, just because it offers so much more promise, one can’t help but raise the level of their expectations, only to not be fully convinced. For the ones who value films based on their time’s value, and ticket’s worth, this is definitely more worthy than the dump of junk you’d normally end up swallowing. The film has style written over all over it, but that is not to be mistaken for sophistication and class.