Looking back at Nandita Das’ Lal Salaam, Subhash K Jha focuses on the film that released in 2002 in this new installment of This Day That Year.
The trouble with cinema on caste and economic oppression is, it makes very oppressive viewing. If we go back in time to notable films on the theme of subjugation, both offbeat and mainstream, we seldom encounter pleasant memories about products from this genre of cinema. While a stray Mother India or Ganga Jumna managed to elevate the subject of oppression into high art, the other raw realistic expositions on the theme like Govind Nihalani’s Aakrosh, Shyam Benegal’s Ankur, Prakash Jha’s Damul and Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen were bitter pills to swallow.
First-time director Gangavihari Boratte paints a bleak picture of our abysmally unequal social order in Lal Salaam, which completed 23 years on May 3. Shot on strikingly green and grim locations where the verdancy perpetually mocks the red-hot brutality of the haves as they lord mercilessly over the have-nots, Lal Salaam takes us to the heartland of the Adivasi tribals eking out a living as they are persecuted and tortured by the brutal law enforcers.
In such a scenario of ongoing injustice, the Naxalite movement comes almost as a blessed signal for justice from heaven. In green fatigues, the lal-salaam brigade comprising ‘Commander’ Rajayya (Makarand Deshpande) and his self-appointed army of social crusaders provide an interesting, if somewhat alarming, counterpoint to the unspeakable torture that the downtrodden of the country are subjected to.
While we applaud the film’s social consciousness, its crude generalizations on matters of socio-political discrimination frequently become hard to bear. The legal enforcement agents are ‘uniformly’ loathsome. Some of the more graphic sequences of police torture could have been avoided. In one sequence, a seedy cop (Akhilendra Mishra) urinates into an Adivasi Ghisu (Vijay Raaz)’s mouth after beating him black and blue. ‘Stream’ realism, what?
Moments of stark sadism lose their moisture through overstatement. There’s an infinitely poignant moment in the narrative when the the incredibly evil Inspector Despande (Sayaji Shinde) forces an adivasi husband to either cough up 10,000 rupees or send his wife to him. The wife quietly gathers herself together and leaves for the inspector’s home….
The tragedy of socio-political exploitation is dissipated when the director goes too far into the poor adivasi woman’s rape-by-consent, making us wonder if the camera’s voyeuristic role doesn’t make it equally exploitative. To be fair, veteran cinematographer Debu Deodhar’s work is exemplary. He makes the beauty of the green landscape seem like a perfect counterpart to the evil designs of the men who infest the habitat. The theme of terrorism in chlorophyllous splendour is filmed with the same eye for natural detail as Santosh Sivan’s Terrorist.
Other major plus points are the haunting lyrics by the one-and-only Gulzar and the rarely-heard genius Pandit Hridayanath Mangeshkar’s music score, which blends folk sounds with militant melodies in a mix of the mellow and the ominous. And what better symbol of purity and beauty than Lata Mangeshkar’s voice cutting through the greenery as a symbol of Nature’s non-judgemental role in man’s perverse designs?
Fatally the Naxalites are portrayed as modern-day Robin Hoods robbing the corrupt of their lives to let the poor live in peace while the ‘other’ side is so mean and subverted, you want to puke in disgust. The naxailite commander is depicted as an erudite and sensitive soul. Rajayya’s dialogues on social justice with the only educated adivasi of the village, Dr Kanna (Sharad Kapoor), are thought-provoking and disturbing in their extremist leanings.
Predicts the chief Naxalite, “A time when every oppressed and poor soul in the land will get justice through the barrel of the gun isn’t far off.” And you wonder if such unabashed declarations of insurgency during these troubled times of Maoist and other extremism aren’t out of line.
Nandita Das’s role as the innocent Adivasi Rupi whose life is split apart when she’s brutally raped by the ubi-‘coitus’….sorry, ubiquitous Inspector Deshpande and who transforms into a Naxalite almost overnight, takes the Phoolan Devi theme a little further. Nandita’s cropped hair, dusky demeanour, and vulnerable expressions lend themselves well to her character. This is her best performance in recent times.
But it’s Vijay Raaz (who shot to fame as the wedding planner in Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding and again as the Sikh terrorist in Company) who leaves a lasting impression. As the cowering tribal is forced to take to the gun, he portrays myriad expressions of brutalized tragedy. His dialogue with Nandita in the forest, when they both mull over their losses, is brilliant.
Lal Salaam ends abruptly and suddenly—a consequence of a dispute between the film’s producer and director, which is a pity. The film had the potential of being a passionate portrayal of injustice and vindication. Lal Salaam misses its revolutionary ambitions by a wide margin. But patches of the storytelling, for instance, the chase sequences in the rugged hinterland, are admirably authentic.
While depicting the abject tragedy of oppression, the film FEELS real. That’s why it must be seen.
