THE BLUF: A satirical view of he caste system in India and how it interplays with privilege that caste, access to education and societal approval brings.

STREAMING @netflix

RATING 9/10 Don’t miss

DIRECTED BY SUDHIR MISHRA

CAST Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Aakshath Das, Shweta Basu Prasad, Nasser, Indira Tiwari

THE MEAT AND THE POTATOES

National Award Winning master story teller, Sudhir Misra again finds the matrix between personality, society, class based politics and human emotions in this expertly told story about a man from a low caste (Caste system is a bit like racism in India where people are divided into castes based on the vocations that their families may have traditionally been engaged in) who aspires to progress in life by projecting his aspirations on his son.

Based on a novel by Manu Joseph, by the same name, this is a story of Ayyan Mani, a Dalit personal assistant to a Brahmin scientist. ( Dalits are lower class and Brahmins are supposedly the privileged upper class).

IN THE ZONE

Nawazuddin Siddiqui proves his versatility as a brilliant actor. With each flick of his hair, every expression on his face in being submissive or dominant as the script demanded, and every change of clothes, he personifies in body posture, language and physical attributes the man that Ayyan was.

Just the convincing effortless manner in which you believe this actor to be another person every time he lights up the screen, is a thing of beauty.

FWAR

Ayyan’s method of defeating the apparent privilege he was only surrounded by, was to create a con story by using his 10 year old son to convince the people around him that the son was a genius with an IQ of 165.

He believed that being bright and educated could earn him and his next generations the social mobility he so desired. Ayyan is an angry protagonist. His entire existence is based on the fulcrum of his future, which was further dependent upon the success his son can achieve.

How his projections towards his son create a deeper fissure in his personality is a story told like a work of art.

Ayyan is perpetually enraged and hits back at every possible opportunity to be a swing character in the story of a lower class man’s struggle to create a better life for himself, almost always working against a society that has not imagined him anywhere but where they felt he belonged. But the thing about class is that however much you push yourself up the chain, you will leave some people behind you. What is more intriguing about that is , when you feel you are on top of this structure, someone else will come and layer themselves on top of you.

The journey of Ayyan working through his collective rage towards the people around him while trying to project the same expectations towards his son is masterfully explored with all the nuances of satire, causticity and a forced vengefulness as the story fills more than just your screen. The social satire on the Indian Education system, the repository mapped life styles, the expectations from society and the urge to be fast and furious are such constituencies that make themselves available through he script and on the canvas.

WHAT WE LOVED: The ensemble cast, the brilliant colors, cinematography, feel, texture, depth of the camera, the emotive reality of the lives they lead and the narration of the story by a director who not only understood the characters well but was able to weave into those characters a story that none of he characters were a part of, yet were actors to bring to canvas.

WHAT WE MISSED: NADA. MORE OF THIS PLEASE @NETFLIX.