In the underbelly of India

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Once in a while comes a hard-hitting, moving Indian film that simply shows you a mirror to what life is for likely the vast and wretched rural majority of this country - and it is hard to watch. Siddarth Jatla's In the Belly of a Tiger is one such film. Only his second feature, it was warmly received in the Berlin Film Festival's Forum section. His debut, Love and Shukla, (shot on a 5D camera in 10 days), was in the Busan Film Festival.

The film opens with a frail old man being readied for the kill - he has blood applied all over his bare torso, and he will be left in the forest to attract a tiger who can gobble him up - so his family can live off the government compensation. It is the most brutal of life choices: to voluntarily let a loved one go to his death, so the others can live. In fact, the entire film is a devastating critique of capitalism. The film's main family are an elderly couple Bhagole (Lawrence Francis) and Prabhata (Poonam Tiwari), their thoughtful, adult widowed son Saharsh (Sourabh Jaiswar) and their granddaughters Parvati (Sonali) and Chatkila (Jyoti). They live on the brink of poverty: They have been forced to sell their land in order to survive, nor could they find work in the big city, so they return home. Now they are at the mercy of whatever job they can find, at a brick kiln, at any wage the landlords choose. It is hard to know which is a more exploitative Hobson's choice: to let the landlords suck their blood over time--or let the tiger gobble them up at once. Saharsh, unable to cope, takes to alcoholism.

The sordid reality is leavened by the tender love story of the old couple and there are scenes of surrealism and magic realism. Villagers also perform mythological plays, starring Lord Vishnu and his wife Lakshmi. As Lord Vishnu reclines - on a bed of snakes - his wife Lakshmi massages his feet. Vishnu claims that whenever his devotees are in pain and call him, he goes out to them. But in fact, he seems to do nothing to improve their wretched situation - the film can also be seen as a critique of religion as an opiate of the masses. So this sensitive independent film made by a Telugu-speaking director from Hyderabad/Bombay, is the farthest counterpoint to the big spectacular Telugu actioners like RRR and Baahubali.

Above all, the film is an example of the new social media model of filmmaking: he got the idea for the film on social media - he saw a news report on facebook about old people being sent to the forest to be eaten by tigers so the family could claim compensation. And he also secured a number of his producers, including Sharada Uma (she reached out to him via social media (facebook) after she saw Love and Shukla online on Netflix, with a view to producing his next film. And he met his Chinese producer Esther Li at the Shanghai Film Festival where his Love and Shukla was showing.

The direction is confident. It is a risk to have a mainly rural, non-professional cast, especially senior citizens who are key protagonists in an international co-production, but there is an honest integrity to the rough hewn performances that is moving. The screenplay, by the American Amanda Mooney and Siddarth Jatla (they are co-writers and partners, based in Mumbai) is a strong one, with space for harsh reality, magical realism and mythological plays. Jatla does the intimate cinematography himself. And what a coup-- the score by musician Shigeru Umebayashi (In the Mood for Love) has melancholic strings, yet Jatla weaves in flecks of hope, with Oscar winner Resul Pookutty doing the sound design. Akhmad Fesdi Anggorro's editing is seamless. The seven producers are Esther Li (China), Bhavana Goparaju (US), Patrick Mao Huang (Taiwan, Flash Forward Ent), Fang Li (China) and Patrice Nezan (France), with two co-producers Axel Hadiningrat and Giovanni Rahmadeva. Women crew include producers Esther Li (China), Bhavana Goparaju (US), Anahita Amani's costume design. Hope it finds release in India soon.

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com