How Soni dives deep into Delhi Police station, control room, to capture the national capital, like few films have
A still from the film Soni
Because he kept mentioning he wasn't into art-house films, during the course of a fairly long interview once, I asked former Delhi-ite, super-star Shah Rukh Khan, exactly what he meant by an "art-house" film, anyway. "The sort where the sound of the bee buzzing, or the traffic outside, drowns out people talking in a room," he said. Well, that's one way of putting it, all right.
ADVERTISEMENT
What does one make of a film that seeps so much into your system though, that soon as you switch it off, your awareness of everyday sounds in your own house-rattling cutlery in the kitchen, water flowing in the bathroom sink-seem instantly heightened, because the movie itself simply hasn't left your mind yet?
That's exactly how I felt, right after watching Ivan Ayr's assuredly quiet film Soni, with ambience sound for a background score (captured to near perfection by sound designer Sylvain Bellemare), and stunningly photographed (by David Bolen), almost always in mid-shot, sometimes long back-shot, sideways- the lights alternatively dimming and brightening up; much like it would before the naked eye, given natural light as the camera's main source.
As treatments go, this might be the polar opposite of how you expect a police/crime drama to pan out, since they are inevitably plot-driven; gruesomely violent, on occasion. Or are at least high on drama, even when slightly internal, being chiefly centered on the travails of the main character. Say, like Govind Nihalani's Om Puri starrer Ardh Satya (1983), or its possible inspiration, Sidney Lumet's Serpico (1973), fronted by Al Pacino-to give you two finest examples.
And yet, with beats mimicking a beat-cop's life, the lens focused on the two female leads-an IPS officer (Saloni Batra), her state-police subordinate (Geetika Vidya Ohlyan); outstanding first-timers, both-with every scene revealing more and more about the characters' dilemmas, rather than merely taking a story forward, Soni brings to fore the Delhi under-belly, or rather the National Capital Region (NCR), like few films have done before.
Firstly the filmmakers strip the two characters of every movie cliché that you automatically anticipate in a cop drama: The senior is supremely self-restrained; the junior, while brave, brash, and indeed frustrated, seems wholly real in her reflexive responses. Neither is seething with anger against the system-both being acutely aware of its natural limits.
And God knows Delhi would be a hard place to police. Come to think of it, the Delhi Police itself-with its generous motto: With you, for you; always-faces a turf war with the local state government, since, unlike all other forces, it falls directly under the Central Government, supervised by the Home Minister, who in turns reports to the Prime Minister, and by extension, the figure-head, the President of India. Between the President and the ministerial clerk, all of whom reside in the nation's capital, each with their own concentric circles of favour givers/seekers, in a largely rentier-entitlement economy, possibly leaves the police with hardly any elbow room to navigate even petty crimes, let alone effectively curb them without restriction.
This explains the existential question of the NCR, by now a popular joke: "Do you know who my father is?" I've seen even my journalist friends get away with a lot with the police in Delhi, flashing their press cards; something, I know from experience, has the reverse effect in Mumbai! Now imagine being a female cop in such a scenario, where even colleagues can't decide whether to call you 'sir' or 'madam'. Loaded with compassion, Soni, the movie, and its eponymous character, helps you do just that.
The film opens with a lone woman on a bicycle being chased down by a loafer in the dead of the night, on an empty street. She grabs the guy instead, being an under-cover cop herself, with enforcements waiting round the corner. As opening scenes for cop films go, although absolutely unrelated, it ranks right up there with the mobile-van, interior-sequence in Vishal Bharadwaj's Maqbool (2003).
Admittedly inspired by the infamous gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman, popularly known as the 'Nirbhaya' incident (2012), Ayr's calmly dark, gloomy, astoundingly realistic police drama offers greater insights into what it is to be a woman in public, even if you're a cop in Delhi, right down to how you should be-preferably wearing "sindoor", or "shirt-pant" (western wear), to avoid inevitable sexual harassment?
I've seen it twice already. It takes a while getting into, but eventually leaves you feeling, in equal measure, empathetic, and eerily quiet in the head. This is, I reckon, the most accomplished Indian directorial debut since Chaitanya Tamhane's Court (2015), which incidentally also premiered in the same section (Horizons) at the Venice International Film Festival. Soni dropped on Netflix recently. Just so you catch it tonight; if you haven't already.
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
Catch up on all the latest Mumbai news, crime news, current affairs, and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
