The timeless Mandi boasts of an excellent star cast and an even better script. Its warm, bitter and funny but always very human. An ode to woman power.
A few years ago, I had an opportunity to meet the great man at the Times Lit Fest. Ever the fanboy, I recounted memories of his many films and audaciously asked him, ‘Is it intrigue that interests you?’ ‘No’, replied Shyam Benegal. ‘It’s actually human stories’. We got down to watching Mandi on Amazon. It was a film that I had caught snatches of, been intrigued by but for some reason never really got down to viewing.
This week has been extremely busy. So, we have been having morsels of Mandi over meals. The movie is over 150 minutes long…so it felt like we were watching 7-8 episodes of a serial.
Multiple shades of grey
But at no point did we lose continuity or encounter jarring bits. The warmth and brutal realities of a time gone by in Hyderabad evoke bucketloads of nostalgia – much like Malgudi Days does. But the medium is predominantly black humour of the ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi‘ variety. There are depth and pathos in the apparent silliness, deep longing in the quarrels, and a rhythm to the risqué routines of a brothel.
Feminism is the subliminal theme. But, always, all characters are human in multiple shades of grey…manipulation, affection and sorrow. Mainly each one of them has a solid reason to be there. And their complex interplay produces truly engaging situations. The thoughtful, lingering background score is a hidden gem of a character by itself.
Great cast
The star cast is a who’s who of meaningful cinema…Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Pankaj Kapur, Anu Kapur, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Saeed Jaffrey, Neena Gupta, Ratna Pathak Shah, Soni Razdan, Anita Kanwar, KK Raina, Harish Patel and Ila Arun.
But it is Shabana who steals and anchors the show, be it the accent, the gait or quicksilver expressions.
Kulbhushan delivers intrigue with cool ingenuity.
Jaffrey endears himself with his hilariously sorrowful reactions to hopeless situations.
And then there is the one and only Amrish Puri. All blazing eyes and with very few piercing words, he is the x-factor in a thrillingly chaotic climax.
Mandi is magic.
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