Stree (2018) – Conflict of Intent
Dir. Amar Kaushik
I have always believed that horror film as a medium of storytelling, of considerable narrative depth has been overlooked for a significant part the last few decades, Hindi cinema not withstanding. Horror (and to a lesser extent comedy) never crosses the line of greatness despite audience acceptance – the genre rarely finds embrace in film schools or critical lists – it is only when the underlying themes become explicit drama do they come to be considered as classics.
But audience has always embraced horror, and it has almost always made good money for those energetic enough to lend their talents. It’s a truly cinematic genre – one that developed in a manner that can’t be realised in the novel, the theatre and music. It is only now, when times have become dramatic and fearful, does horror cinema appear more sane, and a valid form of cinema as entertainment. This would somewhat explain the reinvigorated interested in horror, and mainstream horror dealing with complex issues (read Babadook, VVitch, Get Out, Hereditary, in the West, Pari, Phobia for India etc).
Horror and comedy are a natural connect in some ways – both rely on exquisite timing for them to work, a split second more and reaction can turn from fear to fun. On a different level, both of them insist on dramatic irony on a scene by scene basis – the audience knows something the characters don’t. Maybe the killer is hiding in the house, and the hero enters, unaware. Maybe the diamond was always in the bag.
Almost all horror relies on personal accounts of fear and tragedy, and the way the monster works would often evoke those fears tangentially.
Which leads me to Amar Kaushik’s Stree, a film that finally balances horror comedy, and works it way up to tell a feminist fable without forcing the narrative to bend. This is not to say the film is not flawed, but the filmmakers’ effort to keep the message restrained and let the energy come naturally shows, despite the commercial nature of the process having the better of it.
Chanderi, a small town in Madhya Pradesh, is haunted by ‘stree’, a wronged woman who visits the village every year for 4 days. “Stree” calls out for men when they are alone and sweeps them away leaving their clothes behind. Vicky (Rajkummar Rao), a naturally gifted tailor, falls head over heels with a mysterious girl (Shraddha Kapoor) who only appears during festival season.
‘Stree’, translated roughly as the woman, would of course act both as an ironic synecdoche to ‘mard’. Replace the dialogues with ‘mard’ and interchange the sexes, and you pretty much have real life and daily dose of Crime Patrol, which, by any account, is not funny. (Based on a ridiculously true phenomena – the myth of Nale Ba, and life). This is intelligent writing, keeping in mind the envelope of the film language and the setting, trying to convey the message to an otherwise uninterested audience.
It is only logical that Vicky (played with brilliant comic timing and sincere eyes by Rao) would eventually tackle the eponymous woman, with fear, respect and understanding. It makes sense that Vicky would work as a talented tailor. Here is a profession, like a male gynaecologist, dealing with bodies and sex, the idea of which makes you feel uncomfortable and allows the lewd to trickle into the story. And Vicky can find the measurements of the body without the need to measure them upfront. Here is the male gaze averted even when demanded.
I like the fact how they do bother to flesh out Vicky’s backstory – the film might work without it. If the filmmakers are willing to have the patriarchy come out loudly through Shastri (Vijay Raaz), town’s long lost historian, then Vicky’s origins are a response to it and a statement of humanity. (Watching a film in the theater is never limited to the film, but also constitutes of us reacting to those watching it along with us, in the dark, whether we like it or not, though I argue cinema derives its power from that.) I could hear a few people laughing on Shastri’s misogynistic speech, though most remained silent, sensing the discomfort, marking the change of times, and in a sense, the reason of the film. Shastri does explain his speech, but it is Vicky’s relationship his parents that extracts the silence.
The unevenness of the message, the conflict of intents, intrigues me – here’s a film that cleverly develops its feminist themes, yet reverts to the male gaze for the hook. The song Kamariya (picturised on Nora Fatehi) might serve to establish the predicament of the villagers, but the film, the way it is shot, sides with the villagers on this one. This is not Beedi Jaliyle; this exists purely as an item number, incongruent to the fabric of the theme. My guess is the commerce of the film (producer Dinesh Vijan is an industry veteran here), and the filmmakers belief in their own ability to retain the audience falters their tone. The small town hero’s comic sidekicks are a trope Bollywood has perfected in the last few years. After a slew of Aanand L Rai films, one can easily tell the kind of camaraderie the filmmakers wish for, the kind of dialogues each would spew – here then is the opportunity to ease off a few minutes from the film, and get it’s cogs running faster.
Which is not to say the sidekicks are at any fault here – Abhishek Banerjee’s Jana is a treat to watch. The possession sequence in the house post interval brings such madcap energy to the table, with a perfectly engineered electric guitar score that the audience brims with laughter, searching for pauses to clap. It is precisely in these moments (this and the climax) the film shines bright. The unpredictability of letting frustration out in pretence of being possessed brings a certain joy (like the one in Shaun of the Dead, or even Evil Dead).
For all it’s flaws, here’s a film that shines in writing, that finally manages to balance the tone and ends on a note of poignancy one isn’t expecting from a film of it’s genre. The town and its people, even if late, even if by a force of nature, even if it’s wishful thinking, finally hope to make amends to the wronged ‘woman’.
3.5/4
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