cine TALK

UNSCRIPTED, TROUBLING, THOUGHT-PROVOKING

As the couple hitches a ride with four sinister ‘strangers’ (billed simply as ‘strangers’), the intuitively improvised narrative gathers its cumulative strength by letting the couple’s destiny hang in abeyance.

S Durga

STARRING: Rajshree Despande, Kannan Nayar

DIRECTOR: Sanal Sasidharan

HHHHH

The first 15 minutes of this jolting experiment with truth and nails seems completely unrelated to the rest of the film.

This is what you get when there is no formal screenplay. S Durga (S by the way, stands for ‘Sexy’ but shhhh!) was shot over one night on a barren highway with no script. The film is a marvel of improvisation. Director Sanal Sasidharan is not afraid to plunge into the abyss of the unknown as he explores the sexual dynamics of caste, gender and religious discrimination on a scarily dark desolate stretch of a road less travelled.

In some unexpected way, the highway becomes a metaphor for the sociocultural imbalances in our society where the bullies often posing as custodians of the country’s moral values take over the destiny of ordinary citizens.

And so it happens with the couple Durga (Rajshree Despande) and Kabeer (Kannan Nayar) who are on the run.

The girl is Hindu and North Indian. And the boy is a Muslim from Kerala. Yup, this is the forbidden frightening world of ‘love jihad’ as seen through the eyes of a director who suffers with the couple and is able to transmute their feeling of growing dread to the audience.

We never know till the end what will happen to them. When we leave the couple, we are given no assurance that they will be safe from predators and perverts. But we do know that the strangers who have given them a ride, are taking them for a ride that is most likely end in a horrible crime. Will the girl be raped? Will they be murdered? Or will the couple be robbed and allowed to escape with their lives?

As the scriptless voyage into the unknown reaches an end, you will find yourself sending up a prayer for Durga - who is sexy because she is not doing what sexy people normally do in films, namely act wounded vulnerable and hysterical under stress - and Kabeerwho is Muslim and in the company of his Hindu soulmate on a desolate highway… can it get any scarier? Can we ever hope for a balanced social order when two young adults can’t feel safe together?

S Durga is not an easy film to watch. Its aura of uncertainty makes