Review: Peepli Live leaves you impressed but unaffected

Film: Peepli Live (A)
Director: Anusha Rizvi
Cast: Omkar Das Manikpuri, Raghubir Yadav, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Malaika Shenoy, Naseeruddin Shah and others
Rating: * * * ½

It’s amazing what expectations can do to a film. This year, My Name Is Khan and Raavan were released with probably the most fanfare and found that hopes had been raised impossibly high. No one would have suspected Peepli Live of following in the footsteps of these biggies.

Made by a debutante filmmaker, starring a bunch of never-seen-before actors, shot in rural India and touching upon the issue of farmer suicides; all of these would probably have acted as deterrents rather than incentives for getting people excited.

But add Aamir Khan Productions in the credits and you get a film everyone wants to watch. After all, the banner’s filmography so far has been excellent and Khan's penchant of backing the right horse is legendary.

A few minutes into Peepli Live, though, the people involved in its making — whether it’s the superstar producer or the director Anusha Rizvi, whose brainchild it is — don’t matter. You react to the film purely based on what unspools in the dark environs of the cinema hall and on whether it has the potential to touch you, or entertain you, or make you ponder. In that sense, Peepli Live does a good job of telling villager Natha’s story with a fair sprinkling of humour and heartwarming moments.

Brothers Natha [Manikpuri, apt] and Budhiya [Yadav, dependable as ever] are unable to repay a bank loan they took for agricultural purposes and lose their land. With nowhere to go and a wife, kids and mother to fend for, Natha decides to commit suicide when he learns that the government is willing to compensate families of dead farmers with Rs1 lakh.

But when a local journalist Rakesh [Nawazuddin, brilliant], publishes an article about Natha, which is then picked up by national news channels, politicians come under the spotlight and the entire nation waits with bated breath for Natha to perform the deed. How a poor farmer’s plight becomes a tool in the hands of the media and politicians for personal gains is what Peepli Live is primarily about.

The concept is interesting but not novel. The media and politicians, along with the police, seem to be the two most abused groups in our ‘social’ films and this one walks a similar line. But Rizvi, who has also penned the film’s script, brings a certain degree of sensibility and subtlety, which gives Peepli Live a quality that sets it apart.

The characters are all well etched, be it the rookie journalist who is in tune with real issues in a rural set-up, or the wily thakur for whom power is all that is essential, or Natha himself. Rizvi’s husband Mahmood Farooqui, who has co-directed the film and is responsible for the casting, deserves a pat on the back for his choice of actors. Every performer on screen brings a certain charm to the story and contributes to the narrative.

Shalini Vatsa as Natha’s wife Dhaniya, Farrukh Jaffer as amma, and Malaika Shenoy and Vishal O Sharma as television reporters Nandita and Deepak all put in performances to be proud of. It’s hard to believe that most actors in the film have little or no previous experience of being in front of the camera. They all excel in their respective roles.

Rizvi’s understanding of the subject and treatment is commendable and the research shows. Her dialogues are raw, even making you squirm in places, and the humour ensures the film is not all preachy.

Cinematographer Shanker Raman has captured rural India with amazing finesse and Hemanti Sarkari’s editing gives Peepli Live the right pace. Indian Ocean lends the film a different sound. How great would it be if they agreed to work on more films.

Peepli Live, though a highly commendable effort, lacks the bite you would expect from a film that makes a comment about contemporary India. The message is strong but doesn’t hit you with the force you expect it to. This could be deliberate, given that the film underplays the histrionics and keeps the tone light, probably to reach out to a larger audience.

But while the humour falls short at times, the drama doesn’t keep you hooked consistently either. The film, then, becomes a sort of in-between, leaving you impressed but unaffected.

Peepli Live should have been a surprise package. But given the marketing blitzkrieg that preceded it, it ends up as something that probably falls a wee bit short of what you imagined it to be.

Nonetheless, pay a visit to Peepli. The film is among the most courageous you have seen in a long time.