Once again, in his terrific This Day That Year series, Subhash K Jha revisits a unique film. This time, he is looking back at Applause Entertainment-Nandita Das’s 2023 Zwigato, and we hear from Das about this excellent film starring Kapil Sharma.
Applause Entertainment and Nandita Das’s seriously underrated film about a food-delivery boy during Covid had Shahana Goswami delivering a knockout performance as the supportive, resourceful wife of her suddenly jobless husband. Is there anything Shahana can’t do?
In Zwigato, Kapil Sharma as a Covid-crushed delivery boy delivers a performance that is keenly observant of reality: the languorous paunchy body language , the endless rounds on two-wheelers, handling difficult insulting customers at work, an invalid mother and two children at home… Kapil brings the entire force of destiny down on his character’s shoulder without making him a crybaby.
There is a beautiful moment where Manas put his head on his ailing mother’s lap. His wife Pratima walks in, sees the mother and son together, walks out quietly.
This is my favourite moment in a film that otherwise doesn’t care to create ‘moments’ for the audience to get empathetic. The tone of narration is muted and matter-of-fact. Nandita Das seldom, if ever, directs for effect. Even when there is potential for sentimentality, she avoids any dramatic highs to get our attention.
Take the ending where Manas discovers a saddening secret about his wife’s nature of employment. This calls for some serious tantrums. Instead, Manas takes his wife on a mo’bike race with a train: something, we presume, she loved doing when life was relatively more comfortable and carefree. It’s a beautifully sketched moment torn out of life’s most precious chapter; when everything seems bleak you find a light and celebrate darkness. Nandita Das doesn’t allow a pall of gloom to descend on her narration. There are no lengthy dialogues or pumped-up polemics to prod our conscience. Throughout, the atmosphere is light and hopeful, even in the darkest moments when Manas encounters the nastiest of customers.
Prudently, the director uses a lot of local Odhia talent for secondary roles. In the lead, Kapil Sharma and Shahana Goswami, as a post-COVID couple struggling to keep their heads above the water, are pitch-perfect, Goswami more so than Sharma.
Ranjan Palit’s camera lenses Bhubaneswar as a town crowded by crisis but redeemed by hope. You may not be in a position to be optimistic. But this film shows us the path to a bleak but hopeful future.
Director Nandita Das regrets that Zwigato didn’t get the recognition it deserved when it was first released in cinemas but adds. “I am so happy it’s out, and out there for the world to see on Amazon Video. I am already getting such an overwhelming response! People are writing to me about Zwigato in long email messages . The fact that is it resonating with a really large audience makes me feel happy. Kapil Sharma left me a message saying the same thing. He, too, is getting the most overwhelming response. We may be inhabiting a different world as far as the audiences are concerned, but the film seems to have found its groove.”
Adds Sameer Nair, CEO of Applause Entertainment, “Zwigato is an important film, and globally relevant. Delivery is a worldwide phenomenon. As directed by Nandita , Kapil Sharma brings a unique, everyman pathos to his otherwise everyman comedic avatar. And by putting the spotlight on the lives of the often invisible, it asks us all to at least be more kind and considerate, even if we can’t do more. Zwigato has so many nuanced layers, and we aren’t screaming from the rooftops about any of them. It’s just life as it happens, and many of us must appreciate how fortunate we are to be on the better side of life.”
