PEEPLI LIVE

Suicide for Natha and its benefits becomes national news in the Indian import Peepli Live. Every moment in this satire or protest drama (whatever you want to call it) first-time filmmaker Anusha Rizvi has a very intense interest with her subject, and she wants the world to see the real poverty that engulfs India today. This is not big city Delhi or Mumbai, this is a rural desolate area.

First-time actor Omkar Das Manikpuri plays Natha, the Indian farmer on the verge of bankruptcy. If he defaults he will have to give up his property. This would not please his wife Dhaniya (Shalini Vatsa), whom of course, puts a harangue on her husband. His brother Budhia (Raghubir Yadav) is also in a similar predicament. They hear of a government aid that pays benefits to indebted farmers who have killed themselves, which will leave their family survivors well-off.

Star reporter Nandita Mallik (Malaika Shenoy, in a plum performance) rushes her crew out to interview the camera shy Natha. Boy, is Natha ever camera shy or what. The cameras take pity on him, and so does the rest of India. The character of Natha becomes a platform issue for many politicians up for re-election. The story becomes about them. Hence, the film transforms into a media satire.

This actually helps the film because Natha is not so much of an interesting character, he just remains in a constant haze. Nandita inspires donors to come to the rescue of Natha and his family. Other news organizations want her story. As the story builds, it benefits everyone’s news-entertainment interest if Natha remains pathetic. There is a morbid suspense built into the story on whether Natha will really kill himself or not, but the demise of the film as a whole is how frenzied it all gets. Natha’s story catalyzes a real tragedy indirectly.

This messy, overblown conclusion reveals how filmmaker Rizvi is trying too hard to get us to feel the outrage. The film remains intriguing in its little details. It’s curious to see the locals overload a bus transit and ride in back of it. It’s curious to see Natha berated for borrowing money from a government institution instead of a local loan shark. It’s doubly curious to see how a loan shark can be a mortgage lender. And last, how about the rest of the unemployed non-farmers who sit around all day, joke and sing songs? Life is still far from doleful for the local people who have nothing and yet care little that they do.

“Peepli Live” finds deeper characters than Natha, but it’s worth seeing more for the little details. The movie has a jittery immediacy in its “satire” bits, but is not overly shaky. Though it is far from smooth, except for a bravura closing montage where the camera backs up and travels reverse in automobile speed that shows India, and more of India, and more of India… the lower rungs of rural and city India you have rarely observed before. Those rural men find jobs in construction in the city.

Go to the official site a thttp://www.peeplilivethefilm.com/

Grade: B-