Ankur

Ankur -- The Seedling

MAIN CAST:
Shabana Azmi -- Lakshmi
Anant Nag -- Surya
Sadhu Meher -- Kishtaya

BRIEF PLOT OVERVIEW:
Surya, a member of the land-owning cast, is sent by his father to handle matters in a nearby village. There he meets Kishtaya, a deaf mute alcoholic member of the Dalit ("untouchable") caste, and Kishtaya's beautiful wife Lakshmi, who's only desire is to have a child. Before long, Surya and Lakhsmi are having an affair, overstepping boundaries and pushing the limits of the caste system.

FILM -- 4.5/5
Ankur is blessed with a lot of talent. Its script, its scenery, its colors...they're all very limited. Yet that's what makes Ankur work: we get a taste of how the Dalits live versus the *Vaisyas; we see how their lives are devoid of the luxuries and pleasures an upper-caste person would enjoy. Ankur shows the darker side of India, but unlike Bandit Queen, it doesn't purposely shock you or beat you over the head with it, so you don't feel completely alienated by the social issues it displays. One example is the scene where Kishtaya--after being caught stealing from Surya--has his head shaved and is paraded through the village riding backwards on a mule. His humiliation is so perfectly filmed and directed that the viewer can't help but feel for him. The dialogue is this movie's creative strong point, and every minor nuance helps to characterize the main cast. There are a few directorial decisions I never would have made (I wouldn't have hired Anant Nag, for example), but beyond that, Ankur is solidly made.

CHARACTERS -- 4.5/5
The best part of Ankur: the characters! Shabana Azmi is at her glorious, glorious best. She looks beautiful and gives one of the greatest performances I've ever seen. Lakshmi is charactertized not only by her spoken dialogue and actions, but also by Azmi's nuanced facial expressions and subtle body language. Ankur alone is enough to prove that Shabana Azmi is a one-of-a-kind star. However, Anant Nag really disappointed me. He seemed very wooden at certain points; while he was much more natural when he was on-screen with Azmi, it seemed like she was the one guiding the scene and, hence, he did better. When he's alone, he just doesn't perform as well. Surya was an interesting character, but I don't think Nag brought enough to the screen. But Sadhu Meher...now, there's a different story! The man has no spoken dialogue, but he communicates with the camera so well that you feel as if he's actually speaking to you. Kishtaya will enrage you, but he will also evoke your sense of pity, and he is the long-suffering, complex character most of my Indian friends relate to the most. (Coincidentally, he is also the character I was the most interested in as Ankur progressed.) Sadhu Meher really piqued my interest in Ankur, and now I want to see more from him.

SOUNDTRACK -- 4/5
Obviously, Ankur is a drama, so it doesn't have the song breaks and dances you'd find in most Hindi films. It does have well-written background music, and while it isn't the sort of stuff I'd listen to outside of its film context, it doesn't take away from the movie, either. There are also some integrated religious songs that I really liked, and they integrated said songs in both happy and sad scenes, showing the dichotomy that characterizes the human existence.

OVERALL -- 4/5
To be perfectly honest, I was a bit disappointed by Ankur. Everybody told me that this is one of the most amazing movies I'd ever see and that it would really affect me. While I did feel touched and emotionally stirred by Ankur--especially in its final scenes with Kishtaya and Lakshmi--I wasn't as moved as I was by Indian dramas like Hey Ram or Pinjar. (On the plus side, it didn't aggitate me the way Bandit Queen did.) That doesn't mean Ankur is bad, just that it's a little overhyped. It's a great movie with some of the best performances I've ever seen, and it's definitely on my "top 50 dramas" list, but it doesn't even come close to being on my top 10, and I do feel that it glossed over some issues and/or made them seem less troublesome than they really are. I still highly recommend Ankur to fans of slow-boiling, pricking-under-the-skin dramas, if only for the incredible performances from Shabana Azmi and Sadhu Meher.

TOTAL SCORE -- 17/20 (great)




* Note: I am relatively sure Surya and his family are Vaisyas, but an Indian friend of mine suggested that they may be Kshaytriyas. If anybody knows exactly which of the 4 major castes Surya is a member of, I'd be much obliged for the input!