Thappad (2020, dir. Sinha)

Thappad (in English: "A Slap"), unfortunately, is too much trapped in the Western feminist world to be able to understand woman, in particular the Indian woman. The film would have been a great film if it had devoted itself to one story, to the story of Amrita (or Amu): instead, it tries to take up the cudgels for women of all backgrounds, to show the universality in their lives of being the powerless and exploited or ignored, and then also tries to show what the solution, the fix, is in each case. When you universalise, and then you miss the typical Indian woman and her life, and her dilemma, that's a significant crime.

Let's forget about the film for a bit and let's think of a woman, especially a woman of India. Imagine being married to Barnaby Rudge. That Barnaby Rudge is not necessarily deranged, as in Dickens' novel. But he is everything else that he is in Dickens. This Barnaby is selfish, knows how to use others' love, is cruel, and, at the same time, foolish, helpless, like a child, unable to understand the wily ways of the world, error prone. In Dickens, Barnaby is son to a mother, whom he distresses enough, but let's imagine a different life for our non-deranged Barnaby. Imagine the typical Indian woman married to this Barnaby, now let's say she begot children too with him, let's say she has invested a life in living with him and trying to build something. But Barnaby is selfish, is cruel, maybe even jealous of her intelligence and luminosity. Barnaby tortures her: if by nothing else, then by snide remarks, insidious suggestions, outrageous accusations, violent outbursts. The woman has been trying through it all to better their life as well as to "reform" Barnaby, to make him see that maybe they could have a good life together, if only he were to appreciate his life, his wife, his children. The woman, all the time, is working hard through her intelligence and goodness to make her own and everyone's life better. She is wise with everything: money, lifestyle, rearing up of children, respect for the family in public eye. But Barnaby continues being Barnaby, with spells where he is much less mean to his wife and children, alternating with spells where he is as if a monster has possessed him. What does the woman do? She is bold, she doesn't care for what society will say, she even has those who will back her decision, let's say her brothers, she is even educated so she can be on her own feet, she can leave him. But how does she leave Barnaby to his own devices, when she knows that Barnaby will get into bad company, bad habits easily, will be ruined, diseased, poor, dead if she were to leave him? She can, of course, but she doesn't want to: she feels herself responsible to the fate that brought them together. What does she do? Continuing to live with him is not so pleasant; but leaving is also out of the question for her. She can only fight, unpleasant though it is, every day for every inch of space, but there's not much space she is ever going to get unless Barnaby gets a miraculous cure from somewhere. Does Anubhav Sushila Sinha, the director of the film, have a quick-fix solution to this, among all the solutions he presented at the end of his film? If you have not understood, if you have not thought of the story of the woman married to Barnaby, then you have failed to understand a human being, in fact, forget even whether it's woman or man.

And, indeed, what about the men? Amrita's story by itself is a story that was waiting to be told: the story itself is not shot with great subtlety, but at least it's a necessary story to be told. Yet, by universalising it through showing various women characters in that plight makes the film preachy and a propaganda. Where are the men of this society? I know men who were not given good education because the poor family preferred their sisters to receive it, even though the boys were more interested in education; I know men who have often sacrificed their lives for the sake of their sisters' or daughters', and sometimes their wives', ambitions; I know well-to-do families where the boys have been asked not to marry so that they can continue be the beasts of burden for their families; I know families where girls' littlest of achievements are celebrated but boys' greatest ones are given a perfunctory nod. All these stories are there in Uttar Pradesh itself, the land of the film and its director: a land where severe discrimination exists against men, too, in many families. If these stories sound difficult to stomach for some of you, trained as you might be to focus on discrimination against one set of people only, then surely you must be knowing thousands of men who have been forcibly thrust into the masculine role of the provider of everything, the one who is supposed to step out of the home, to work and make their way up, to provide riches and muscular protection to their family. Society does not like men to stay at home or those who wander around without earning money or power. It doesn't even like men to work from home: it wants men to step out and do some "action"—if nothing else exists, visit a brothel (but don't just tell it). Staying at home is "soft." I have seen thousands of listless young men, especially in India, burdened by the society's wants. Go to any busy bus depot of India: you will meet these young men I am talking about. Where are they in the film? When you universalise and yet leave at least half of the world from it, that's not universalising: that's a fake universe you are creating. If the director had dedicated himself to the story of Amrita, then there would have been no qualms: but by making a portmanteau, he has exposed himself to questions regarding his choices of what to put in the portmanteau. A portmanteau usually ends up being a vehicle of propaganda. The title of the film, "Thappad" ("A Slap"), rather than "Ek Thappad" ("The Slap"), also reveals how the film is more about the portmanteau rather than Amrita's story.

As for the story of Amrita itself, it could have been better told through use of more and better subtlety and casting the husband Vikram's character differently. Rather than show an impatient, hot-tempered Vikram, show a man who does not have these flaws in such a great extent: then show the subtle undermining of his wife. That makes the story richer and closer to home for the audience. There are men who do most of their own work (and know how to do it) rather than asking their wife or mother to do that for them, who are more mature, more patient: but they too have the power balance on their side and use it to keep others around them under their thumb. Show them. Symbolism-laden shots such as the one where Amrita sees herself in the image of a mere servant, when Vikram asks for medicine from his maidservant, make the film only preachy and rob it of any subtlety. Such symbolism at best only ticks the director's ego in having managed it. What I demand would require more subtlety (than films like this or the short film Juice), but that is the story to tell rather.

Taapsee Pannu herself acts well and her dialogues with Tanvi Azmi towards the end of the film are well written and important. Unfortunately, the rest of the film is poor and preachy when it could have been so much better.

I will end with what exists. There are at least a couple of excellent Indian films that show both the worlds of men and women, the pressures on each of them in our society. One is Ray's Mahanagar (int'l title: The Big City), and the other is Rajkumar Santoshi's much-underrated Damini, which is explicitly about the miscarriage of justice but in reality a much deeper film in spite of its melodrama. It's time for Sinha maybe to watch them and learn a thing or two.