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Patchy stuff

Suparn Verma

Director Vinay Shukla's Godmother sounds great on paper, but fails to have the same hardhitting impact on celluloid.

Veeran (Milind Gunaji) leaves his barren village along with his wife Rambhi (Shabana Azmi) and comes to the city (somewhere in Rajasthan). Now a labourer, he comes across a local goon extorting money and ends up killing the guy. Local caste politics come into play and the cop frees him because he belongs to the same Mer community as Veeran.

A free man, he mixes with the local liquor manufacturers and stops gangs from other communities from monopolising the market. An ambitious lawyer-cum-power broker, Kesubhai (Govind Namdeo), uses Veeran's muscle power to fight the elections, wins and, in true political fashion, starts abusing his power. Veeran, too, gets caught up in all this power play, but soon realises what he is doing. An attack of conscience ensues and Veeran wants to undo all the wrong he has done. But he is killed for wishing to lead a straight life.

By which time, local elections make the rounds again. This time, though, only a woman is allowed to contest. The party chooses Rambhi, since she can garner sympathy votes on account of Veeran's death. Especially since Veeran is from the dominant community. When her brother-in-law, Meru, becomes a thorn in her side, she manipulates Kesubhai to have him sent to Dubai. A few years later, she is elected to the Vidhan Sabha.

Rambhi graduates from a housewife to an ambitious and ruthless godmother and lords over disputes and tenders, making money with every deal and murdering anyone who stands in her way. She is abetted by Nirmal Pandey through her struggle for power.

As years progress, rather too abruptly, Rambhi's son Karsan grows up to become a spoilt goon. He does not lose the least opportunity to exploit his mother's name. He tries to force Sejal (Raima Sen) to marry him. When she refuses, he makes his mother call upon Sejal's father and finalise the relationship.

But Sejal meets Rambhi in private and tells her that she loves another man, Asad, and hence can't marry Karsan. A jilted Karsan goes and stabs Asad. Which sparks off a riot, fuelled by Kesubhai and company, since Asad is a Muslim.

How all this comes to an end is what the climax of the film is all about.

First and foremost, let me make this totally clear, there is no relation between this film and Kapur's Bandit Queen. The latter is a superior and sophisticated piece of filmmaking.

Godmother has its unique moments now and then, when you suddenly feel the film has taken the right turn. Just when that happens, though, the film abruptly lapses into cliches of the worst kind. Rambhi's rise to power, which is never explored in depth, could have included so many details which would have added to the film. Just removing two songs and adding a couple of more scenes would have made Godmother a much stronger film.

Before the interval, Vinay spends too much time leading up to the moment when Rambhi is elected. But after the interval, he just speeds up the film to bring it to the present.

Let's take Godfather, a classic example of filmmaking. The first part is totally focused on the present. The second part deals with the past and ends with the future in the form of Michael Corleone.

But, to do that, Coppola had to make two films which totalled almost six hours. In a time frame of two hours, that also includes songs, one has to limit the story in one time zone. Nayyakan and Agneepath are good examples of this fact.

Rajan Kothari's photography is extremely inconsistent -- looking excellent one minute and patchy the next, sometimes incorporating stock shots that look very dated.

There seems to have been quite an effort at cost-cutting. For example, a shot of Karsan smoking in a theatre while he dreams of dancing on the big screen with Sejal is repeated throughout the song. We see the same Ambassador blowing up at different times in the climax. And when Veeran's dead body is being lifted, the same shot of the kafan being lifted off his face is repeated through the scene ad nauseam. Guess Renu Saluja needed all her editing skills for this one.

The music of the film is good, which is no surprise since the film is backed by Gramco. Vishal Bharadwaj does a good job with the songs and the background score. But the story isn't the sort that needs songs and dances, especially since they don't establish any character or carry the story forward.

Shabana Azmi, though, is fabulous and is ably supported by a sombre Nirmal Pandey. Milind Gunaji and Govind Namdeo are good but, in the end, you do wish they had been given more footage to showcase their talent.