India Lockdown review: An intriguing if underwhelming mix of anxiety and depravity

In a scene from Zee5’s India Lockdown, a young man declares “Anyone can speak their mind. It’s totally cool.” It’s a conversation that begins by an older woman casually probing the young man’s opinion about gender roles. “I’m impressed”, she says. This depthless conversation that ends as soon as it flatulently launches into the air unanticipated, is evidence of a film that though it probes intriguing aspects of the infamous nationwide lockdown two years ago, doesn’t quite have the intellect to articulate itself. Directed by Madhur Bhandarkar, India Lockdown simultaneously feels dated and perceptive. The corners it wants to illuminate are intriguing, but it does so with the conviction of a torch running on its last pair of batteries.

India Lockdown is an anthology within a film. Four different stories compete for attention in a film that wants to examine sexuality as much as it would like to explore desperation and debauchery. It’s enthralling if uneven mix. Prakash Belawadi plays Mr Rao, an elderly man living on his own, in a story that underlines the insecurity felt by the elderly. Another story focuses on the plight of uprooted daily wagers who must make the journey home on foot (stunningly captured by Vinod Kapri’s 1232 km). Prateik Babbar plays Madhav in another story that illustrates, rather hurriedly, the pitiable condition of the underprivileged. Shweta Basu Prasad plays Mehrunissa, in possibly the film’s most intriguing plotline about how a Mumbai brothel copes with the implications of a nationwide lockdown. A fourth story, about a young boy’s first brush with fidelity, is deadweight and could have possibly been foregone for material that otherwise stinks of promise.

Bhandarkar has always been a keen observer of our social mores and even though his filmmaking methods have refused to evolve, there is some spark between the ears still. Take, for example, the story around Mehrunissa and a brothel that must adapt to unforeseen, challenging circumstances. At one point in this storyline, a politically connected man uses an ambulance to enter the brothel. Desire, the film says, finds a way. It’s a unique if uncomfortable take on the inherent depravity of humans, their tendency to submit to passions long before they submit to logic and consistency. Madhav’s desperate journey to bring his family to safety is again punctuated by the poison of desperation of the basest kind. Even in the direst of circumstances, the film says, humans catastrophically chose will over wisdom.

These are all interesting messages, and as awkward as they might seem meshed into a mix of despair and desire, they do import a certain flawed nuance into a conversation that finds its origin in unvarnished men. The problem, as was the case with Bhandarkar’s previous streaming era film Babli Bouncer, is that the filmmaker simply hasn’t been able to upgrade to an era where the technical craft of filmmaking must also shoulder the intellectual virtuosity of ideas that aren’t as bad as the performances and lack of technical know-how makes them look. Almost all departments including sound, editing, writing and acting fall flat here. There is ample material waiting to be chewed into but the craft on display feels more like a hand-grab than an affirming embrace.

The other problem with India Lockdown is that the subjects it concerns itself do not match each other’s sense of jeopardy. While the story about a poor migrant family and a desperate old man attempting to cross state lines reeks of sincerity of sorts, the other two, seem to exist in a world where Covid, the lockdown are mere buzzwords. While that might itself be a point, it’s never conveyed with any sort of conviction. We see queues and crowds, but never quite feel the anxiety of those days because every time the pandemic eats into the narrative, the story moves onto other, more relaxing landscapes – like love, sex etc. Add to that a bunch of incompetent, unconvincing actors and a script that though intriguing, sags.

India Lockdown is obviously relevant because it harks back to a time we continue to define through our own memory. Despite the outlandishness of some of Bhandarkar’s stories this is an intriguing segue into some of the unacknowledged aspects of those unprecedented weeks. Sex, lust, depravity, are all fair game in this film that is brave enough to accept that the human condition is destined to outlive any tragedy, mental or physical. It is possibly this reduction, or tendency to return to our primal instincts that makes us, who we are. It’s not always pleasant watching, but when have humans ever wanted to earn that badge of honour anyway. Least of all in the middle pandemic where the latest thing you did could also be remembered as the last thing you did. What would you choose?

India Lockdown is streaming on Zee5

Manik Sharma writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between.

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