Sembi: Disturbing, flawed but relevant film on child abuse

In Tamil writer-director Prabhu Solomon’s Sembi, now streaming on Disney+Hotstar, there are many flawed and at times completely reprehensible episodes. The gawd-awful portions are so awful they seem like deliberate attempts to besmirch what is otherwise a notable film on child abuse.

Sample this for crude intervention: right after brutally raping a 10-year girl the three rapists discuss why they attack children.

“Because we are pedophiles,” drawls the inebriated gang leader(who is quite predictably an influential politician’s son, which brings up the question of why children of politicians are often shown to be sexually depraved in Indian films).

I understand the director wants us to know how far down the pit of depravity these rapists are gone. But no paedophile speaks of himself as one.

For all its unquestionable integrity of purpose, Sembi encounters too many raw nerves and rough edges in its plot. These threaten the film’s bleeding heart and come close to destroying its sanctity of purpose.

But then there is the grandmother-granddaughter bonding at the core of a crumbling plot which saves it from going down. Little Sembi (played by Nila) with her big questioning eyes reminded me of the ravaged child in Abhishek Chaubey’s Sonchiriya.

It is veteran character-actress Kovai Sarala as the grandmother determined to get her little grand daughter justice who holds the film together, and irons out its rough spots. Sarala as Veerathayi has so far played comic roles. This is her first major dramatic role. If for nothing else, the writer-director Prabhu Solomon must be congratulated for casting Kovai Sarala against her image.

The rest of the vast cast moves on the strength of its own prototypical positioning: the sleazy cop who pretends to on Veerathayi’s side, only to brutally betray her interests… We see him coming from miles away. Luckily for us and the script, Veerathayi refuses to pander to predictable passiveness. Instead, she picks up her wounded granddaughter, ties her in her back and takes off on a journey through the jungles for justice.

So far, the powerful centre of the plot holds together in spite of the woeful concessions to crudity. Once Veerathayi’s bus journey begins with Sembi the film begins to resemble Bombay To Goa with every passenger projecting a certain theatrical behaviour patterns rather than being true to the director’s value system which he so frequently flaunts with songs about the poor honeycollector who was stung by wild beasts in the jungle, etc etc.

The second-half of the film is strewn with dialogues on why we judge the victim/survivor rather than the perverts who perpetrate the crime. There is also a mysterious angelic nameless lawyer (Ashwin Kumar Lakshmikanthan) who helps the rape survivor get justice and then vanishes into thin air. Ghost dost?

Not much to roast in a film that has its heart in the right place. But to flaunt its heart in a film that wants to make a point on child sex-crimes( there is even a lengthy monologue on POSCO) with so much, for the want of a better word, hooliganism, makes the end product look like a wrath yatra that balances out the ill-tempered outbursts of disgruntled characters with loud laughter. You can’t mix social comment with streetside comedy.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.

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