A pitch-perfect Pratik Gandhi performance underwires the intrinsic authenticity of Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s Phule. But more than anything else, it is the abiding pertinence of the film’s theme that sets it apart from anything that Bollywood has delivered, or is likely to produce, this year.
Phule has its share of dramatic flourishes, but it lets nothing deflect it from its resolve to bring to the big screen an essential story that is still as relevant as ever, notwithstanding a card at the end of the film (obviously at the behest of those with the power to decide what we can and cannot watch), proclaiming that the caste system is a thing of the past.
Employing unflashy but largely effective plotting devices, the film written by Mahadevan and Muazzam Beg highlights the iniquities of the caste system and the titular 19th-century social reformer’s pioneering and painstaking fight to uproot customs and practices designed to trap the underprivileged in poverty, illiteracy, and powerlessness.
Some of the film’s flashpoints are elaborately staged for the camera. A few others are either only spelt out in lines of dialogue or dealt with in passing. One thing that Phule does not do is lay much store by the conventions of commercial Hindi cinema, an obvious strength that might not instantly endear it to those who are seeking more conventional entertainment.
It is the end of the 19th century. Poona, which on the screen looks more like rural than urban, is in the grip of the Bubonic plague. An ageing Savitribai Phule (Patralekhaa), wife and lifelong indefatigable associate of the now-deceased Jyotirao Phule (Pratik Gandhi), rushes to a medical camp to attend to an infected patient at great risk to her own life.
The crisis is severe but it is no more unnerving than the ones that she and her husband encountered as they went about their mission to uplift women, Dalits, and farmers. The film succeeds for the most part to capture the enormity of the task that the couple sets themselves.
In its depiction of a period of great turmoil and a couple’s concerted efforts to mitigate the sufferings of those deprived of access to social and political rights, Phule does not get ahead of itself although the temptations to do that are many and obvious.
Phule does not convey rage as much as it expresses shock and outrage. The guardians of the caste system stand in the way of the two intrepid social activists but the film makes it a point not to construct the battle in the manner of an outright good-versus-evil confrontation. The balance that underpins the film stands it in good stead.
Phule bears tell-tale signs of the modifications imposed upon it by the Central Board of Film Certification. None is as apparent as the muting (which, of course, is akin to mutilation) of the caste references in 14-year-old Mukta Salve’s pioneering essay that is regarded as the first specimen of Dalit writing in Marathi.
But a handful of crucial scenes—notably one in which cow dung is hurled at Savitribai by Brahmin boys and a face-off between Jyotirao and Pune’s upper caste men over the shadow that he casts in their path—are very much a part of the film.
The actors, even those that would, in formulaic cinema parlance, be designated as the bad guys (priests, scholars, and other orthodox elders who oppose the education of girls and other social and religious reforms), are allowed to largely underplay their parts.
A Hindi biopic that does not resort to distortions and selective tweaking and heightening of recorded fact is, if nothing else, a whiff of fresh air. Phule captures a time and place where those who possessed power-the British rulers, the upper caste gentry, and the religious leaders did as they wished, unmindful of the plight of the people they oppressed.
One might fault Phule for cramming too much into its 130 minutes but there can be no denying that the film stays true to its purpose. It brings to the screen for the first time ever for a pan-Indian audience the life and times of two social reformers who laid the ground for the Dalit rights movement.
It follows the events leading up to the founding of the Satyashodhak Samaj (Truth-Seekers’ Society) in Pune in 1873 to address social conditions that gave undue powers to the upper caste elite and undermined the well-being of the masses.
Firm in its historicity, the screenplay extracts every bit of drama that it can from a narrative without going overboard with it.
Phule is as much about Jyotiba, whose life changes because of the Protestant education he receives, his exposure to Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, among other books, an unhappy encounter at the wedding of a Brahmin friend (this incident is mentioned, not shown), and the disagreements he has with his father Govindrao (Vinay Pathak), as it is about Savitribai, a child bride home-schooled by her husband to a point where she is ready to be trained as a teacher herself.
Savitribai’s quick evolution is paralleled by that of her closest associate Fatima Sheikh (Akshaya Gurav), a Muslim girl educated at home by her brother Usman Sheikh (Jayesh More). None of the principal characters in the film is a figment of the imagination but some of the situations that they find themselves in are often amped up for effect.
The script focuses on the many storms that the Phules weathered as they went about their urgent mission to weed out evil practices like untouchability, child marriage, and oppression of Hindu widows, and promote education for all.
Having been subjected to a flurry of bloated and shrill period dramas aimed at peddling slanted narratives of convenience, discerning Hindi movie audiences should find the factual fidelity of Phule both refreshing and surprising.
Phule tells an inspiring tale but it is not the sort of crowd-pleasing movie that could inveigle those who watch and enjoy Chhaava and Tanhaji. It is strictly for those who can separate grain from cinematic chaff.
Phule has many strengths beyond the performances and the craft that has gone into its making (unflashy and to the point, cinematographer Sunita Radia and editor Raunak Phadnis do their jobs to perfection, but nothing compares with what Pratik Gandhi brings to the project. He is the heart and soul of the film and overshadows everything, and everyone else.
Patralekhaa serves as the ideal foil. Phule has notable supporting performances by Vinay Pathak as Jyotirao’s conservative father, Sushil Pandey as the reformer’s tetchy elder brother, Darsheel Safary as the couple’s adopted son Yashwant and Joy Sengupta as a vocal Brahmin leader.
Watch Phule not only because it has something to say but also because of the way it says it—with restraint and integrity.
