Santosh: A feminist thriller

Illustration/Uday Mohite

How fantastic that British-Indian diaspora director Sandhya Suri's Santosh, in Hindi, is UK's entry for the Oscar for Best International Feature. When I worked for the Dubai Film Festival, we had shown My Pure Land, British-Pakistani director Sarmad Masud's Pakistan-set feature in Urdu, that had also been selected as UK's entry for the 2018 Oscars, so Santosh is not the UK's first South Asia-set, Oscar entry. It's an amazing Women Rising year for Indian/diaspora women filmmakers, with Sandhya Suri's Santosh as UK's Oscar entry, Kiran Rao's Laapataa Ladies as India's Oscar entry, and Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine as Light also in the Oscar race.

Santosh, a UK-Germany-France-India co-production, was earlier in the Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard, and at the Toronto International Film Festival, for whom I'm Senior Programme Advisor, South Asia. It is also selected for the BFI London Film Festival, and won Best Debut Feature at the Jerusalem Film Festival. Suri's previous work includes the marvellous documentary I for India (Sundance, 2006), and the short The Field, which won Best Short at the Toronto International Film Festival and a BAFTA Nomination in 2018.

Santosh is a brilliant, feminist thriller-drama, a police procedural exploring the nexus between caste and justice in India. Santosh is a widow whose husband, a police constable, was killed on duty during a riot in Uttar Pradesh, north India. Shahana Goswami, playing Santosh, is excellent; so good to see her in a meaty lead film role, after long. As compensation, she is offered his job instead. But when she offers to help a Dalit man file an FIR about his missing daughter, her male superior simply dismisses the complainant. Soon, the missing girl is found raped and murdered and her body flung into a well. When the local Dalits protest and block the streets, the male police officer reluctantly assigns a senior woman Inspector Sharma (Sunita Rajwar, terrific) to handle the case. Sharma teaches Santosh the ropes; she's a quick learner. Both women need to use machismo and varying degrees of violence to solve the case. But as soon as they catch a key suspect, "the system" takes over, and neither Sharma nor Santosh have any control over its corruption, brutality or consequences. "Results" must be delivered; compromise is the default setting. Both women find themselves trapped by the system, and justice seems more and more elusive. There's an oblique, halka-sa suggestion of attraction between the women - in the way Sharma casually leans her hand over Santosh's seat in the jeep, or invites her over late at night, and is gently but firmly refused. Masterly.

Suri is in absolute command, and her direction is compelling. She sharply comments on how, even when there are women in the police force, they usually become pawns in a deeply casteist, patriarchal system. She exposes, like a raw wound, how near-impossible it is for low castes to get justice in India. The fiction film has a very meticulously researched, documentary feel. Suri rips apart patriarchy - including how women have internalised patriarchy and are their own worst enemies: when Santosh is newly widowed, her mother has to beg the mother-in-law to let Santosh stay with them, but the mother-in-law dismisses Santosh as a witch who sucked her son's life. And the casual way the body of the Dalit girl who has been raped and murdered is treated by the police, almost presages the real life rape and murder of the junior doctor at the RG Kar Hospital in Kolkata in August.

In addition to Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar, the ensemble cast is excellent too. Suri's screenplay is layered and shines with lived-in detail: the newly recruited Santosh must wash the blood off her own dead husband's uniform and wear it on duty. Uff! Rather than a neat, satisfying climax, Suri prefers to leave it ambiguous, as life often is. Lennert Hillege's cinematography is powerful, and respectful in how it frames the women. Maxime Pozzi-Garcia's editing is effective. Luisa Gerstein's music is discreet; and Susmit Nath's sound design is superb. The producers include Mike Goodridge, James Bowsher, Balthazar de Ganay and Suitable Pictures' Alan McAlex, and the film is backed by Good Chaos, Razor Film, Haut et Court, and financed by BFI and BBC Film. The women crew include director and screenwriter Sandhya Suri, music composer Luisa Gerstein, production designer Devika Dave and costume designer Bhagyashree Rajurkar. I hope this powerful film, that holds an unsparing mirror to India today, is shown globally, including in India.

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