Sandhya Suri’s Stunning Santosh Representing the UK Has Made It To The Oscar

Sandhya Suri’s  Stunning Santosh Representing the UK  Has Made  It To The  Oscar Shortlist Of 15  Nominees. An Exclusive Conversation With The Lady Of The Moment.

British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri’s Santosh  representing the UK, has made it to the  Oscar  shortlist of  the final 15  films.  A chilling indictment  of  police  atrocity,more  bludgeoning  in  impact than Vetrimaran’s  Visaranai, Santosh tears at the  innards of  our soul with its  scathing  portrayal  of  inhumanity.

Santosh works  swimmingly  on  many levels. At the  start  it is the story of  a young minimally  educated  woman  who upon  her sudden widowhood , gets her  husband’s  job as  a police constable.  Her first posting takes her  to a remote  town somewhere  in Uttar Pradesh(the place names  have been  duly fictionalized ,and it’s easy to see why) where a 15-year old girl has just been  raped and killed .

 Santosh,  played with a transfixing authenticity  by Shahana  Goswami, finds herself at  the vortex of a caste and  communal incongruity that  gives her all time in the whirl  to  discover  her conscience.

 Rest assured, this is not  an elemental  cop-discovers-soul kind of drama that we have seen  infinitely.There is something  uniquely  binding  about  the  conflicts  of interest that Santosh Saini  exerts  on  her conscience.  Her  movement into the  deepest  darkness, and then a  beam of light that  shoots through her  hurtful hemisphere , is  arrived at  with an unsettling quietude.     Luisa Gerstein’s  background score is  nihilistic . It is  used not to punctuate  but  to  define the scenes.

 Besides  Goswami, and  Sunita Rajwar  who  plays Santosh’s worldweary senior and co-conspirator , there is  a third hero in  Santosh: cinematographer Lennert Hillege captures the  ominous bustle  of a hybrid society in  a  furious  flux  without fuss.Some  of  the  most tense  moments in the  narrative are shot with such  livid  luminosity (for  example,  the lengthy chase  to nab the alleged  culprit in a dingy  ill-lit  lodge ) one forgets to  breathe.

Ironically,  the  more  visceral  the visuals get, the  more ‘cinematic’ is the impact of Sandhya Suri’s extraordinarily evocative excursion  into the  heartless heartland of  lawlessness.

There so much to appreciate  in this  austere humbug-free stare  at  ‘Free India’ where the  powerful are free  to  inflict every  variety of  injustice on  the powerless.

As   Sharma says wryly to  Santosh, “There are  two  kinds   of untouchable in India : those who  nobody touches, and those whom  nobody can  touch.”

Touche!

As  Sharma, Sunita Rajwar  who has made a living out of being a  laughing stock, does  a jolting about-turn as a  crabby cop who has many dirty  secrets. Rajwar is pitch-perfect but  the  cigarette smoking  could have been  avoided:  the actress hold and puffs like a novice. Also  the  lesbian suggestion  could have  been  avoided. They don’t add anything  to the grim moral turpitude .

 My two   favourite sequences  in Santosh  both have a nosering in it: once when someone gifts it to Santosh and then again at the  end when she  gives it to a random   girl on the station. Traditionally the  nose ring  has always been seen as symbol of oppression. Here it is a tool of liberation.Santosh  plays  the  dirty-cops game with no redemptive  graph as such. It is  not  a film about  finding  one’s  soul.  It is about wondering why it gets  lost in the  first place.     Understandably  director Sandhya Suri is over the  moon. “What to say apart from very happy and honoured! I don’t know honestly how it happens but it is gratifying as an artist to make a film one is proud of, not compromise for sake of commerciality, but end up with something which is still engaging to audiences and is recognised, in my case, by both India and the UK. And of course, the police and institutions of India have not arisen out of a vacuum.My main wish for the film is for audiences to see it. We had an amazing summer run of three  months in French cinemas and close to 150,000 cinemagoers see it, which is big for a non-French film by a newcomer. Having robust distribution in India and the UK is the next step. And so so important for me.”

  Sandhya Suri’s  stunning  saga of  police brutality  and the bonding between two female cops rings  so true.  But Sandhya  iterates that Santosh is   not based on  any one incident. “This is not a film about one true case. It comes from the daily horrors, particularly against women, which we continue to read about, which seem not to abate and for which justice is not always served. For a long time I had been searching for a meaningful way to talk about violence against women. I was in India researching and working with various NGOs when I came across an image. There were nationwide protests following the Nirbhaya gang rape case and this was an image from Delhi of a huge crowd of angry female protestors, faces contorted with rage, and a line of female police officers, forcing them back. One of them had such an enigmatic expression I was fascinated by her. What a gulf between her and those protesting, what power her uniform wielded and what powerlessness not to feel safe as ordinary women. To explore this violence and her power within it felt exciting. Once I started to research female police constables I learnt of the government scheme of ‘appointment on compassionate grounds’ in which eligible dependents of deceased police officers can inherit their jobs. During my research I spent time with many such widows. Some had previously led very sheltered lives never even leaving the house without their husband or a relative until they started their police training. I was struck by the journey: from housewife, to widow, to policewoman. That was a journey I wanted to write about and one I wanted to watch. Quite early on in the film’s life I had interest and even offers of finance from private investors. I had turned these down because I didn’t feel that the film was ready. Whilst the film is so strongly character driven, being a film based in the police, it still falls into a genre and coming from documentary I was initially cautious about that. It was very important to me to ensure that everything in the film was researched in great detail, that I could stand by each thing in the film and know it had firm roots, not just in terms of documentary research (of which I did a lot, both in person and in collaboration with police anthropologists) but also in terms of Santosh and her journey. Hence its long gestation. For me a good film is also a sum of all its details, so layering those details in was important for me in regards to the film’s authenticity.”

  About the   casting of  Sunita Rajwar and  Shahana Goswami in the two main roles  of cops , Sandya  says,  “Sunita was perfect for Sharma. It would have been very easy to choose someone with a more threatening or intimidating feel .We see this female archetype often in Hindi cinema .But what I love about Sunita is that she brought us a really human Sharma.  Her face delivers so much vulnerability. I loved that layer she brought to her. Sharma I feel is ultimately unknowable; what she knows, how much she even believes her own rhetoric is up for debate and Sunita played that beautifully. As for Shahana, Sanjay Bishnoi at MCCC who was the casting associate I worked closely with on finding the leads, suggested her on the last day of casting after seeing the film Zwigato. We had not originally thought of her, as she was slightly out of the age range of Santosh, but when she walked in, she had just what I was looking for; the right mix of hardness and sweetness, anger held within restraint, energy and a hunger I always saw in Santosh, a wanting for something more. She delivered all these things so superbly. I find her utterly iconic in her uniform and in this role. I very much hope she is recognised for her brilliance here.

Santosh portrays  a moral ambiguity  to the police  procedural wherein  even  the protagonist Santosh becomes  a  part  of the  corrupt system.  Regarding this moral toxicity Sandhay Suri explains, “The film for me was always about a type of place… a small backwater town where violence, corruption, misogyny, casteism and religious intolerance just linger casually in the air. It’s not pointed at, it’s just … there… What is it like to be surrounded by that, to breathe it in daily? I knew it wasn’t going to be a story about a good cop in a bad system but rather a morally murky universe and Santosh finding her particular shade of grey within it. Earlier in the film I think she believes, or is led to believe by Sharma that there are only two ways to be as a woman; like her or imprisoned and unwanted in her domestic space. In the film Santosh tries to find out her own way.”

  The nosering as symbol of  power as well as subjugation runs across the stunning  film.

 Explains the incredible director, “In  the beginning of the film Santosh’s  in-laws comment on how inappropriate it is that the widowed Santosh wears it. After that she does not have it on until her mentor  Sharma slightly forcefully pushes it in and tells her it’s her right to wear it . Even the cobbler comments on her lack of toe rings. Her body is constantly observed. At the end of the film I feel that Santosh has learnt a lot from Sharma, for good and for bad, she has no further need for her  psycho-feminism BUT that little girl on the platform, in Macho Gahr, alone in the night, it feels as if she might need a little piece of that as well as of course, the monetary gain that it could offer.  And so it brings closure to this chapter of Santosh’s life.