A remote and forgotten
town in Rajashthan...A failed novelist frittering
away his life in a forced marriage and a thankless
government job...A mystery woman who ends up dying
mysteriously on the highway...A high profile scam
involving land and water...A powerful minister
who patronises an orphanage from where a young
girl disappears...A pretty girl who is not what
she is claims to be...An illegitimate daughter
who wants legitimacy from her politician father
so that she and her husband can have a share of
his property...Murders...More murders...Disappearances...Pedophilia...Accusations...Threats...Blackmails.
Beatings...Chases…
 Debutant
Navdeep Singh packs in all these and more in his
film Manorama: Six Feet Under and works
up a thriller that holds up some promising drama.
It has all the ingredients of a classic film noir
– a false opening in the form of a woman
who introduces herself as somebody else; a femme
fatale who takes the private eye on a ride; conspiracies
that unfold from seemingly normal events; ; a
powerful and well-connected adversary who is a
patriarch; the mingling of personal obsession
(read sexual) with the larger conspiracy; the
marriage of big business to corrupt political
deals; dislocation of impoverished people as a
result; and the jaded protagonist who finds himself
inexorably drawn to the vortex of events that
carry him from one tumult to another till his
personal life goes for a toss and he finds a part
of his body dysfunctional for a considerable stretch
of the film, thanks to the hoodlums who try to
thwart the detective’s nosey ride.
The reference to Roman Polanski’s cult
film Chinatown is obvious and acknowledged
(in a scene from the film playing on television
where two hoodlums slash away at Jack Nickolson’s
nose; in Navdeep’s film the hoodlums break
Abhay Deol’s fingers). But that is where
the parallel ends. Navdeep successfully takes
the core of the 1974 Hollywood classic and transforms
and transplants it into a remote town in Rajasthan
and adds more layers to the story than it can
perhaps handle.
The character of Satyaveer Singh (Abhay Deol)
is introduced through his own voice-over as he
rides on his new bike, which is a 'gift'. He is
a failed and frustrated novelist who is out on
suspension from his job because of corruption
charges. As he rides his bike he relates the boredom
and ennui of his work town where nothing seems
what it appears to be; everything is like a mirage.
And suddenly we are treated to a scantily clad
Yana Gupta in the middle of the highway who drains
a bottle of mineral water on her head in an ad
like image. Satyaveer drives through her and Yana
disintegrates into thousand sparkling pieces!
Whoosh! It is a magical moment in the film and
the tone is set; we gear up for what is to follow.
But unfortunately, the first half of the film
does not follow up the promise and is quite slow
in fact, despite its flashes of brilliant moments.
The basic mystery is introduced but we have no
clue where the story is leading to. We know a
big scam involving the State Irrigation Minister
(Kulbhushan Kharbanda) is afoot and the character
of Manorama (Sarika in a wasted role) coaxes Satyaveer
to spy on the minister who she claims is her husband.
The mystery deepens when it is reported that she
has committed suicide by jumping in front of a
speeding truck. By that time Satyaveer has learnt
that she is not the minister’s wife and
her life is in danger. There is more to it than
meets the eye. He continues his investigations
that do not yield much result and by interval
we are almost wondering what all is happening?
But the film picks up pace post-interval and packs
in a chain of events that comes as complete surprise
to the audience.
 Though
the second half is more racy, the film unfolds
in a mode wherein the viewers are forced to connect
to the events on screen in a proactive manner
and fill in the missing links and back-stories.
This is where the film falters majorly because
we cannot keep track of the events which are piled
on one over the other rapidly and cannot figure
out the reasons for a whole lot of actions; as
a result the viewers are left guessing and bewildered
and sometimes even barking up the wrong tree.
There is just too much confusion. For example,
when does Manorama take those intimate photographs
of the minister with the young girl? In that case
why does she need the help of Satyaveer? Why does
she run from Satyaveer when he stumbles into her
in Jaipur? What exactly is the role of the girl
who called herself Sheetal? How did the minister
get her and put her to use? What exactly is the
role of the doctor and Sameera, the minister’s
illegitimate daughter? Why are they killed? How
is the property angle as represented by the murdered
couple connected to the wider social and political
drama being investigated by Manorama? How does
the minister’s pedophile angle fit into
the whole scheme? How exactly does the young girl
from the orphanage die in the minister’s
house? It's not that these strands are not sought
to be explained, but for significant stretches
of time the audience has to grapple with the links
and forge a connection between them, as if solving
a riddle much against its wish; as a result they
cannot keep up with the pace and the flow and
are left high and dry. As more information and
revelations pile on, the film cannot take the
load towards the end and seems to be in a hurry
to wind up. So it suddenly resorts to a totally
ineffectual series of freeze frames of the secondary
characters and sordid back events as Satyaveer’s
voice-over explains away a whole lot of mysteries
and missing links.
The discrepancies in the screenplay apart, the
film is also terribly let down by its inconsistent
camerawork. There is a distinct mismatch between
indoor scenes, which are almost like bad television,
and outdoor scenes, which resort to overdose of
crane shots and complicated movements, some just
gimmicky. Recall an earlier shot of the film where
the camera moves over a single-storied office
building, looking down at it, comes to the front
of the building and then it cranes down to catch
Abhay Deol as he emerges from the gate and follows
him to his new bike which he kicks starts and
drives off. That is quite an impressive beginning
to a film but the camerawork does not sustain
the yardstick that it sets as the film progresses
and goes steadily downhill.
 The
sync sound and sound designing by Subhash Sahoo
incidentally are quite impressive and so is the
background score by Raiomond Mirza. Jabeen Merchant’s
editing manages to hold the film together while
the production designing (Mustafa Stationwala,
Meghna Gandhi) is noteworthy in it that the interiors
of the principal characters are realistic and
an extension of their drab middle-class personalities;
same with the costume designing (Payal Saluja
and Amrita Pednekar).
Abhay Deol as the failed writer and amateur detective
scores extremely high on the performance chart
and seems to be getting better with every film.
The way he internalizes the gradual transformation
from a bored family man and frustrated government
engineer to being a private eye on a mission to
unearth the truth against all odds, gives that
extra edge to the film. In the scenes where the
minister raves and rants against him and calls
him a small fish, he sticks to his seat, literally,
and fixes him with a gaze that ably demonstrates
his histrionic skills and marks him out to be
amongst the most promising actors of our times.
Gul Panag as his wife looks de-glamorized to the
point of being too ordinary. The family scenes
between the two do underline their monotonous
existence but that’s about it; it fails
to add any additional layer. Vinay Pathak, in
the role of an alcoholic thanedar and Abhay’s
brother-in-law, has emerged as a noted character
artiste in recent times in all the films that
he is doing, but in this film his presence is
missed as he disappears for large tracts of time,especially
in the second half. Sarika as Manorama is totally
wasted and badly photographed. Her character fails
to evoke the necessary mystery element needed
at the beginning of the film to set the tone;
it looks as if she is just going through the motions.
However, the two actors who play the minister’s
henchmen who bash up Abhay and batter his bike
steal the show whenever they appear on the screen
with their peppy dialogues and no-nonsense attitude;
they spice up the action with their performance
and come across as deadly and potent pawns in
the power game. Kulbhushan Kharbanda as the wiry
and wily minister is in his elements and it is
good to see him back in action after a long time.
Raima Sen has the meatiest role and delivers a
commendable but understated performance as she
changes shades in the course of the film; but
her interactions with Abhay sound contrived because
of loose dialogue writing in those scenes. But
the scene where Raima Sen demonstrates a seduction
piece on Abhay Deol under the orders of her mentor
is extremely effective.
All in all, a good effort that reasonably demonstrates
the director’s ability to handle scenes
and actors but let down by an overloaded and confusing
screenplay. The film does manage to evoke the
sights and sounds of a small North Indian town
with its rundown havelis, dusty roads and highway,
overcrowded buses and taxi services, road side
tea shops, busy saloons, the unduly curious neighbours,
transport yards parked with trucks, political
rallies, minister’s bungalow, deserted construction
sites and the ubiquitous police station where
small time criminals are unabashedly belted by
those in authority as routine practice. It is
quite a brilliant stroke to set a crime thriller
in such a sleepy town where time seems to have
come to a standstill and the director manages
to pull it through, almost.
See our preview of
the film.
Ranjan Das is an alumnus of the Film
and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune
with specialization in Film Editing 1992. Having
edited various documentaries and directed different
programmes for Bengali Television, he has also
written for the popular TV serials Sidhhant,
Crime Patrol and Rihayee.
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