Film: Anaarkari Of AarahStarring: Swara Bhaskar,Sanjay Mishra, Pankaj Tripathi, Ishteyak KhanDirector: Avinash Das

What's It About:

​Nothing in this unexpected storm-trooper of a film has prepared you for its high-velocity energy and fervent statement on female sexuality. AOA is many things at the same time. It is a shimmering sun-soaked mirror of small town values wherein every sneeze or fart is noted and evaluated across the communities . And yet the story of Anaarkali (Swara Bhaskar) is also the story of every woman urban or rural. So here’s the simmering provocative scenario. Anaarkali, the small town hottie who makes every guy in town horny, is on stage giving robust voice and body to her raunchy songs—yes, she does dirty dancing for a living and enjoys her job as much as Swara enjoys acting and I enjoy writing—when the town’s prime educational institution’s Vice Chancellor (Sanjay Mishra) decides to take the ‘Vice’ too seriously. He jumps on stage to molest the dancer ,as her performing partner (played with poignant panache by Pankaj Tripathi) watches in muted horror.All hell breaks loose thereafter. While the lechers of Aarah seethe in anti-climactic rage, Anaarkali gives them a long rope to hand themselves with.

​What's Hot:

​Without exaggeration Anaarkali Of Aarah (AOA) is the surprise of the season. It is stunning in thought, spellbinding in plot and utterly gripping in the way the story of a small-town dancer-singer’s adventures in lecher-land unfolds. This is a sublime film about the dignity of labour narrated with a raunchy rigour that is often appealing and at times exasperating. Swara brings out the feisty Bihari woman’s inner strength and an extremely appealing moral grounding even when confronted by the demons of her disreputable profession. It is a terrific premise for a post-feminist film. Sanjay Mishra as the sleazeball academician, Vijay Kumar as his murky cop in crime, Pankaj Tripathi as Anaarkali’s partner on stage, Mayor More as her callow infatuated utterly devoted lover-boy, Nitin Arora as backalley music baron and last but certainly not the least Ishteyak Khan as a small town man who knows how to respect a woman --these are not just performances. They are classrooms of impeccable characterizations. But above all there is Sawara Bhaskar giving what history will record as one of the bravest and most important performances by a female actor in post-modernist Bollywood.Writer-Director Avinash Das doesn’t focus on remaining fashionable about women’s empowerment.

​What's Not:

As the protagonist's destiny goes out of control so does the narrative. ​After a point this heroine’s tale has a will of its own. You suspect neither the writer-director nor the actress playing Anaarkali can control her destiny.They, like us, can only move back and gawk in amazement as this astounding female hero takes on the empowered goons co-powered by the louts LaLu Land.​It could be daunting for those who do not understand the sexual politics of the North Indian hinterland.​ The smell,the feel, the flavour and the emotions of the stiflingly patriarchal small-town is so palpable, you are swept into the vortex of the film’s vibrant vista. Full marks to the film’s cinematographer Arvind Kannabiran for making Aarah and Anarkali seem wedded to one another , and of course Rohit Kumar’s authentic folk songs ….they add so much value to the proceedings.

What To Do:

With this towering achievement around the others don’t stand a ‘ghost’ of a chance.

Rating: *** ½(3 and a half stars)​