Prakash Jha’s Satyagraha is a political movie that, for all its well-meaning bluster, neither bites neither scalds. It goes wrong to strike the centre of the reality that it hunts for.
The Apaharan-Raajneeti-Aarakshan equation is intact here. Director and author Jha takes up a topical socio-political topic and forges a drama designed to consign a note of import.
regrettably, Satyagraha barely skims the surface of a convoluted topic, departing numerous a vital inquiry unanswered. As a result, it can barely be anticipated to shake a huge territory and its somnolent rulers out of their torpor.
Satyagraha replacements no effort to contemplate the increasing surge of public wrath against a creaking, corrupt and callous scheme that delicacies people of the homeland like a burden of dirt. The script sketches inspiration from some real-life scams and political shenanigans, and constructs a predictable narrative that underscores the undeniable might of communal newspapers. The 2G scam, excavation principle flip-flops, the ills of coalition government, underhand agreements between fixers and ministers, and the growing role of Twitter and Facebook in driving the well liked ire against corruption and poor governance are all alluded to. All this is communally applicable all right, but strictly from the issue of outlook of the plot, it amounts to a bit of overkill.
The movie raises all the right matters, but it tends to not only too many loose cards on the table but furthermore to employ the incorrect devices to get its issue across. The righteous indignation that Satyagraha articulates never rather supposess the form of a full-fledged conflagration that can sock the assembly in the face.
On the soundtrack, we often hear “Ambikapur is burning”. We glimpse that reality only in the pattern of slogan-shouting protestors, sermonizing activists haranguing an unresponsive management and an aimless bunch of patrolling policemen. The fire that is presumed to be storming in the fictional upcountry locality that the movie is set in does not exactly leap into the sky and turn into authentic, palpable ire.
A spirited fightback by an upright and idealistic left school principal Dwarka Anand (Amitabh Bachchan) and the transformation of a telecom czar Manav Raghavendra (Ajay Devgn) into an hard-hitting people’s leader constitute the two primary strands of the Satyagraha narrative. Neither evolves into a full-bodied battle of attrition that can contain a two-and-a-half-hour movie simultaneously.
A problem that has beset Jha’s latest movies is back to haunt Satyagraha as well. The primary characters do not converse like you and me. They make talks from a rostrum. When they are not letting out warm air from a pedestal, they deliver impressive statements of intent to each other and every person inside earshot. It is an approach that is better matched to road theatre than to the big computer display.
This is not to state that Satyagraha is an unduly strident film that talks wildly and rants about how incorrect things are with Indian democracy.
In detail, Jha shows blinks of characteristic brilliance in the kind that he handles the film’s quieter instants. A couple of scenes stand out. A shocked-into-silence Dwarka Anand is dignity personified as he demonstrates his sorrow at the accidental death of his engineer-son (Indraneil Sengupta). Amitabh Bachchan, who is as much in command here as he has ever been, packs more strong feeling into that lone instant of tragic stillness than he is permitted to do in the reams of dialogue that he consigns. In another sequence, driven journo Yasmin Ahmed (Kareena Kapoor) battles the succinctly discredited Manav Raghavendra when he comes back from the freezing to reclaim his place in the Ambikapur sun. phrases, both furious and contrite, are exchanged, but it is the conciliatory kiss that closures it for the twosome. This is deft minimalism.
unhappily, such instants are rather rare in Satyagraha. As the talks roll, furious slogans rent the air and Facebook revisions and tweets flash over the computer display as a device intended to arrest the disgruntlement of the people, the characterizations goes under into shallow generalisations. The chief antagonist, Ambikapur MLA and state dwelling minister Balram Singh (Manoj Bajpayee), is projected as a benchmark Bollywood villain who smirks and scowls while strutting round the location with the air of a man who understands no halts.
The film’s key character, Dwarka Anand, too, not ever comes by a tangible, believable seem. He is a larger-than-life Gandhi-like number who abhors greed and violence with identical vehemence.
Dwarka Anand, Daduji to his followers, slaps the locality collector for not doing his job, gets punctually thrown behind bars, and sparks an agitation that drives the politicians and policemen of Ambikapur scurrying for cover. The ageing teacher’s Anna Hazare-style fast-unto-death, undertaken on a raised stage and under a shamiana in what is called the Ram Leela Maidan, is a worked plot twist that becomes a lame pretext for another around of speechifying.
Satyagraha has a clutch of fine performances with Bachchan, not amazingly, premier the way with a measured understanding of a feature that sparks a revolt that intimidates to spiral out of his grab. It might be a feel tough to accept Ajay Devgn as a fresh-out-of-college wannabe entrepreneur. Neither does Kareena Kapoor Khan’s scribe gaze the part of a TV reporter apprehended in the swirling heat and dirt of a small-town transformation.
But neither Ajay neither Kareena permits the gaps in reasoning hurl them off balance. Manoj Bajpayee, regardless of being saddled with a badly etched part, is the genuine celebrity of the display. He evokes mirth and provokes hating with smallest of apparent effort. Parts of Satyagraha make flawless sense but, on the whole, it not ever comes close to banging into top equipment. It departs you more let down than angry.
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