Film review: Shyam Benegal's Nishant, starring Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Girish Karnad

Perplexed Shabana, worries about her fateLike his first film, Ankur, Shyam Benegal's second venture Nishant develops into a landlord-tenant confrontation, though does not deal directly with the problem. Whereas Ankur sowed the seeds of a mini-revolution by the oppressed classes, Nishant sees its fruition.In both cases it hints at the resurgence of the youthful spirit, symbolized by the boy's defiance in smashing the window pane at the close of Ankur and, again in Nishant, the boy's surveying in cold horror, the final massacre of the landlord's family. But for these similarities, Nishant cannot be called a sequel to Ankur.The scene here is set in a village in a feudal state in pre-independent India, and we are told that the film is based on a true incident which occurred in a village named Hanchkatti, some miles outside Hyderabad.This is, of course, no guarantee that the film on that episode will automatically become a work of art of the calibre of, say, Pather Panchali. It is here that a discerning viewer will notice a wide gap between director Benegal's intentions and his achievement.The story is about a wealthy, powerful and ruthless jagirdar (landlord) and his three brothers who hold the entire village under their thumb, missing no occasion to tyrannize the meek inhabitants. The eldest brother is a bachelor occupied in managing the property and exploiting the villagers, while the two others spend their time in wild debauchery.Director Benegal - Rapport with his starsThe youngest, played convincingly by newcomer Naseeruddin Shah, lives with his wife in the joint family and in the whole household, seems the only one able of showing human sensibilities. But '., too. finally succumbs to his brothers' influence, and it is his attraction towards the new school teacher's wife (Shabana Azmi) and her consequent abduction by his brothers, that sets the pace of the story.Director Shyam Benegal makes an unsuccessful attempt to portray the frustrations prevailing in the three main characters. The teacher's wife who is forced to reconcile herself to the circumstances, the husband (Girish Karnad) who does everything he can to get his wife back only to realize the hopelessness of it all, and the jagirdar who desires her, but is initially unable to sexually force himself on her.It is however disappointing that Benegal's approach to the exploitation of the villagers is not subtle at all. The glaring facts which are exposed merely succeed in detracting from the credibility of the story. Benegal has, no doubt, used actual locations for his film and brought a measure of realism in the portrayal of the characters, but there seems to be an invisible gap between what he wants to depict and what the viewers want to comprehend or get involved in.A situation may be realistic and even then audience involvement may not be forthcoming, for which, no one but the director should be held responsible. Some of the episodes in Nishant look grossly contrived and the depiction of private domestic chores are downright boring and only generates titters.Being trained as a short-film maker, Benegal somehow cannot shed his documentary approach even while tackling an intimate scene. The closest parallel that comes to mind is Girish Karnad's 'Kaddu', which also had lots of violence, including a rape scene.But it was Karnad's sheer directorial ingenuity which enabled his viewers, despite the language barrier, to involve themselves fully in the proceedings, to care for the film's characters. Even in the bloody, climatic scene, he never lets his subtlety of approach desert him. Subtlety, however, is not a forte of Shyam Benegal, not at least, in this film, and the final mob violence in Nishant, however well orchestrated, degenerates into a typical mob scene from a cheap Bombay commercial movie.Then there is also the question of the period in which the story is set. It is supposedly pre-independence, but there is nothing to prevent the viewer from getting the impression that it may be in the recent past. That in itself need not be such a disqualification.But what can one make of the treatment meted out to women? In Ankur, the maid servant (Shabana Azmi) was seduced by the landlord's son only to be discarded eventually. In Nishant, the female protagonist is forcibly taken away and raped by the landlord's brothers and there is nothing she can do but get reconciled to the position of a concubine of the house. Furthermore, the legitimate woman of the house is a helpless witness to this wholely repugnant situation. A more demeaning depiction of womanhood in this International Women's Year is hard to imagine than the one shown hereAll this could have been overlooked had director Benegal succeeded in giving his other leading characters some sort of plausibility. Take the jagirdar whom Amrish Puri plays. He is the most feared in the family. And yet he seems unconcerned as to what is happening around him in the house, what havoc his mindless younger brothers are playing under his very nose. Or even the teacher played by Girish Karnad, with his going through the elaborate legal processes, then suddenly bursting into hysterics when nothing happens. It becomes an oppressively monotonous exercise in histrionics.Nishant, for all its expectations and the unusual interest aroused among discriminating cinegoers, appeared to this writer a rather stupefying example of what they call "higher bosh."Published By: AtMigration Published On: Jun 24, 2014 08:34 IST--- ENDS ---

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Film review: Shyam Benegal's Nishant, starring Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Girish Karnad

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