'Bandar' Movie Review: Anurag Kashyap and Bobby Deol create a dark and disturbing drama about sexual harassment and MeToo

Cast: Bobby Deol, Sapna Pabbi, Saba Azad, Sanya Malhotra

Director: Anurag Kashyap

Language: Hindi

Anurag Kashyap’s new film is titled Bandar. It’s co-written by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee. The necessary disclaimer says no animals were harmed during the making of the film. Bobby Deol plays a fading star called Samar. This is one animal who has definitely been harmed since he’s accused of sexual assault and harassment. This is in the wake of the MeToo movement that shook but not necessarily surprised Bollywood. The film begins with a restless and breathless chase that’s now a staple in Kashyap’s cinema. He has been fascinated by frenzy since Black Friday. Darkness is to the erudite filmmaker what lost and found was to the marveling Manmohan Desai. When we meet Sameer for the first time, his entry shot takes us back to the flashy wardrobe and extravagant outfit of Amitabh Bachchan from Yaraana. It’s not just the clothes that are shimmery but also his life which is now going to be all still and sullen soon.

You know your boots are in danger when the flashlights begin to flicker. And the spotlights that now elude Samar draw parallels to Deol’s own tumultuous time between 2013 and 2017. The applause suddenly went silent. The brutality of social media trolls took over. The dizzying heights were gone and the fortunes were at their absolute ebb, bringing depleted coffers along. More than Samar, this character feels like an extended version of Deol himself. It’s always tricky to essay someone that’s similar but also far away from your persona. Shah Rukh Khan too walked a tightrope in Fan. Samar’s stubbornness irks his girlfriend played by Saba Azad. He doesn’t want to do television since he thinks it’s stupid. He thinks she’s cheating on him. Jail and false accusations are not new for Bobby Deol. He has tried and tested those deep waters in Ajnabee, Gupt and Jurm before.

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And just like Ugly, Kashyap stages another taut police station scene and sprinkles it with dark humor. A reference to Subhash Ghai stands out as the conversation between the actor and the commissioner gets intense and uncomfortable. The filmmaker films Deol mostly in close-ups that establish his inner turmoil. And he barely uses background music to drive the message home. He lets the restlessness of the moment to take center stage. Bandar is a film that makes you curious to know how Bollywood may have reacted to the allegations that surfaced all over the internet. And how the family of the accused would have responded to the horrific stories. Many refused to speak. Mum was the word for the bigwigs.

Director Ajay Bahl told a similar story in Section 375, but where that drama unfolded mostly in court, Anurag Kashyap chooses to film his central character behind bars, and how the experience shakes and suffocates him. But Bandar, which is also called Monkey In A Cage, is not perfect. A haunting Sapna Pabbi, who plays Gayatri, the victim in the high-profile case, doesn’t get enough screen time in the first half. We are mostly told (in hushed whispers) what all transpired between Samar and her, and not shown. But when she does get her scenery to chew, she brings back memories of the psychotic Malini Sharma from Raaz. And Deol gives this role his all. It’s difficult to deconstruct Samar as he’s a man of a few words. He stutters and shakes when he hears that number 376. He feels like a misfit both in the world of glamour and even with the jail inmates. That perennial frown which we have seen in many films before, finally gets its judicious use.

Another star of Bandar is cinematographer Saiyed Shaaz Rizvi. We have come a long way in terms of portraying jail on celluloid. The sprawling havelis masquerading as central jail are days of the yore. Things began to change for good when Ram Gopal Varma and Sriram Raghavan began making movies. The nauseating intimate shots inside the jail, which include the sweaty prisoners, the filthy commode, are both jolting and revolting. It’s understandable how Kashyap wanted to give Deol a new dimension as an actor, especially post his 2.0 and Lord Bobby Deol phase, but the film needed to show more of the people close to Samar. Saba Azad and Sanya Malhotra needed more time to be with the audience. We needed to know how they are coping up with his absence at home. And how Pabbi is taking on his imprisonment. What exactly is her side of the story?

But once Bandar ends, one gets a sense this is a film that refuses to give easy answers. If we don’t get to see the victim as much as the accused, it has less to do with the fact that the story is being told from the accused’s lens and more to do with how Kashyap revels in the ambiguity of his narratives. It somehow oscillates between Ugly and Kennedy. Something in the central characters change. After a point, they are used to inhaling the sinister energy in the air. They make peace with the unfairness of law, lawlessness and life. They become exactly like the name of this movie.

Rating: 3.5 (out of 5 stars)

Bandar is now playing in cinemas