Samar Mehra is not a has-been actor. His career never took off and at 50, acting opportunities have shrunk considerably, and so have his relationship prospects. Samar — played by an almost opaque Bobby Deol, a necessity for the part and not an encumbrance — sustains by lip-syncing to his old hits (C’mon baby, with him looking like a shiny disco ball, is addictive) at weddings and entertains himself by being on a dating app. His rent is overdue, so is surgery for a bad back. Unmarried, his current on-off date is Khushi (a refreshing Saba Azad). Cynical and exhausted, one night Samar finds his life upended when cops unceremoniously land up and herd him off to jail. A disbelieving and distraught Samar learns that he has been accused of rape by Gayatri (Sapna Pabbi), a woman he claims he had right-swiped on, got intimate with a few times and ghosted when she got obsessive. But in a post #MeToo society skewed against the man in such cases — “I am a victim,” Samar laments. “You are the accused until proven innocent,” his lawyer (Riddhi Sen is solidly cast) says bluntly — he finds that the stakes are heavily stacked against him.
Directed by Anurag Kashyap and built around true events, Bandar is a crucial if uneven examination of what happens when the seemingly powerful are rendered powerless. Kashyap, always known to march to his own beat, eschews formulaic filmmaking to fashion a timely tale about gender bias, consent, modern loneliness, a system thriving on apathy, societal prejudice and the need for due process over judgment, to plunge the viewer into a largely watchable film which could become anyone’s nightmare.
A sizeable part of the 136 minutes of Bandar is a gut-wrenching, visceral prison drama. Using a handful of extremely well-cast actors — the most prominent among them being Indrajith Sukumaran, Raj B. Shetty and Sukant Goel — to bring alive a jail whose stench you can almost smell across the screen, Kashyap and co-director Sakshi Mehta Lau work with Paatal Lok writers Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee to sketch the horror of power games within its walls, that abound in cantankerous characters, as well as the politics that plays outside it. Hardcore groups, referred to as “handis”, see inmates divide themselves, with those accused of rape being pariahs. Samar quickly learns that it is “safer” to be branded a murderer than a rapist.
Even as he finds the walls closing in on him, literally and figuratively, Samar relies on his sister (Sanya Malhotra delivers as always) to bail him out of the situation. But much against his wishes, he also learns to adapt to his new life where everything comes at a price. A hundred men sleep, often on top of each other, in barracks meant for 20 and cuss words (this is a Kashyap film, and that too focused on delinquents) are par for the course.
Bandar is not an examination of who is guilty and who is innocent. Rather, it is a succinct look at a prejudiced system that labels quickly and a media trial that takes place with abandon. The apathy at large is illustrated by the film in various ways, including the judge presiding over the case blatantly stating that “the rot within the film industry’ speaks for itself (and automatically places Samar in the dock). “Hamare desh mein kuch sanskaar hain, respect hain,” has a recent deja vu feel to it.
What stands out in Bandar is that Samar — even though he seems to be the “victim” — isn’t your average whitewashed hero. Bandar is as much about male entitlement as it is about blurred accusations. Despite the gruelling and depressing tone and treatment, dark humour, a Kashyap trademark, stands out here too. What made me smirk is watching Kashyap indulge in a bit of nepotism himself, casting son-in-law Shane Gregoire, who is not really an actor, in a part that the film didn’t need.
Overall, Bandar is a thought-provoking watch that asks the question: ‘Are all women innocent? Are all men predatory?’ It gives no clear answer. But Bandar does tell us something we all realise at some point: “Hum khud apne circus ke bandar hain”. Life, after all, is a monkey dance.
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