SONCHIRIYA

 : A seamless western that perfectly describes the Socio-Economic climate during 1975.

Director : Abhishek Chaubey

Writers : Abhishek Chaubey , Sudip Sharma

Editor ; Meghna SEN

Music Director : Vishal Bharwaj 

Lyricist : Varun Grover

Cinematographer : Anuj Dhawan

Action :Anton Moon 

Cast : Sushant Singh Rajput , Manoj Bajpayee ,Ranvir Shourey ,Bhumi Pednekar , Ashutosh Rana

When the trailer came out it was a bit of fresh air for me. Because mainstream bollywood usually tends to mess up western genre by either making the actors look posh rather than rusty . and the actors tend to mess it even further by doing horrible accents and sometimes by speaking anglicized Hindi. By looking at the star cast. I went to see the film. To my surprise, the film turned out to be one of the best films of not just this year,  but maybe one of the best films of this decade.

 Sonchiriya ( Golden Bird ) unlike its name, the film starts off from the close-up shot of flies sitting on the corpse of a snake, the camera stays there till we see the bandits coming from behind. Maan Singh’s Bandits have a certain set of principals: they don’t attack women and children, they don’t have a beef with anyone , in a particular heist Maan Singh ( Manoj Bajpayee ) even refuses to rob a bride’s jewelry, he gives  101 rupees as a gift to the bride. ( Sounds like a nice guy , right ? ) Maan Singh does these heists as a necessity, you can clearly see the frustration through his eyes and body language. There is absolutely no aspect thrill or pride in whatever he does. Vakil ( Ranvir Shourey ) is a short-tempered bandit who is totally devoted to the Dharma of Bandits, he is kind of a nihilist character who sees nothing other than his Dharma. There is a brilliant and slightly disturbing scene,where he beats up another character for allegedly ratting on him.  Lakhan ( Sushant Singh Rajput )  a rookie, who questions the principals of the gang, The Dharma of the Bandits doesn’t make any sense to him, Lakkhan’s inner conflict brings a lot of the twists and turns in the film. 

On the other side, we have Gujjar ( Ashutosh Rana ) an STF cop who takes this task way too personally. That scene where he kills an alive Bandit by shooting him in the mouth is quite gruesome.

The story takes a brilliant turn ( mild spoilers!) when Indumati ( Bhumi Pednekar ) runs from her house after killing her father in law for raping an untouchable girl. The bandits decide to give her shelter for being from the same caste. ( casteism is very evident in this film ) While her husband and her son are out to kill her and Gujjar and his team are out to kill the Bandits

What I loved is the way this film talks about the social problems in our country. Casteism ( one more time ) when a doctor refuses to treat a dying girl due to her caste, Gujjar humiliating Thakurs after killing a prominent member, Gujjar’s colleagues hating him for killing people from their caste. Sexism, “Caste categories are for men; women are a separate caste altogether.” This dialogue sums up everything. Superstitions , after getting a prominent member killed Vakil and his gang heads to the mandir because Vakil believes that ‘ Gods aren’t satisfied with them ‘ which leads them into more problems. Also, the film takes a potshot at the politicians when a hurt Maan Singh says ‘ Sarkari goli se kaho marein ? , hum toh inke waadein se marein , behno bhaaiyo ! ‘

The performances don’t look like performances, and that’s the beauty of this film. Nothing seems staged here. Everyone looks speaks, acts authentic. You don’t see characters , you see a person , a real believable person.

The editing ( Meghna Sen)   is top-notch , it kind of reminds me of watching There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson Edit. Dylan Tichenor). Because in both these films you don’t see the transition from wide shot to a closeup , the cut is invisible. The Editor has given a great rhythm to the film and he followed it till the end.

The background score by Vishal Bhardwaj creates a significant amount of tension , it totally follows the rhythm of the film and most importantly it never becomes jarring , not for a single moment. Also the two songs ‘ Baaghi Re ‘ ( Sukhwinder Singh )  ‘ Sonchiriya’ ( Rekha Bhardwaj )  written by Varun Grover add a lot to the story.

Anuj Dhawan’s  cinematography gives us the feel of scorching heat in the desserts, the unabashedly raw and rusty look of the film totally elevates the film to a new level.

Anton Moon who designed set pieces for films like District 9, The Maze Runner here relies a lot on realism, Gunfights look real, the action is gruesome, disturbing and at times kept off-screen. Here, bad guys (almost everyone) can shoot straight !

Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Chaubey’s writing is top-notch, it doesn’t have the actors mouthing dialogues kind of dialogues but the kind of dialogues that reveal a lot about the character and their state of mind.

Director Abhishek Chaubey’s previous films  have a Narrative that revolves around a woman ( Ishqiya , Udta Punjab ) here, he uses the word ‘Sonchirya ‘  as a metaphor for the freedom of abused Indumati and morally upright Lakhan . The scene where Maan Singh is going to rob a jeweler’s wedding cuts to an Akashvani Broadcast where the speaker reads “ The president has declared  emergency , there is no need to worry ‘the way he used  Gods Eye View for that shot is just terrific. Also, he has a knack for choosing actors whom we’ve seen in a totally different light ( Shahid in Udta Punjab , Arshad Warsi in Ishqiya ) Also Chaubey happens to be the assistant of Vishal Bhardwaj who has given the music for this film.

Overall, Sonchiriya is a fabulous film, that will take some time to grow on the viewer’s mind. After the film got over it took me a lot of time to comeback from 1975 and find an auto ……