Could have been a much greater achievement Bhoomi
Director: Omung Kumar Starring: Sanjay Dutt, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sharad Kelkar, Shekhar Suman “Jadd se ya dhadh se?” SanThe rape-revenge motif has jay Dutt plays a cruel KBC been done so much to death I with his daughter’s rapist, wondered why we need anoffering to either kill or casother film on the theme. But trate him. Bhoomi has plenty of surpris
The pleading begging rapes to offer. It never lets the ist takes the knife and plungvery beautiful Aditi Rao play es it into his pants. the victim-card eventhough
I squirmed , as I was meant she is violated humiliated to. Bhoomi a film about a faand vilified repeatedly. Yet ther and daughter’s revenge she stands tall and dignified. on her wrongdoers set in the This could be because Aditi seamier side of the city of the Rao in the film’s titlular role Taj Mahal, is not an easy film is just so frigging ethereal. to view. Just because it stars Her makeup-free scrubbed Sanjay Dutt, don’t expect and honest face conveys him to rise Phoenix-like to hurt, suppressed anger and the occasion. With remarkhastily dismissed bewilderable disregard for his largerment. She is a treat to watch. than- strife image, Sanjay Put her on screen with Dutt Dutt plays an aging caring and you have magic. Scenes doting father who is a helpsuch as the one where she less mute entity in the case to tells her broken dad it’s time fight his daughter’s violators. to rise above the tragedy, are pitch-perfect in their shrill yearnings, neither overstating nor trivializing the very grim issue of rape.
Sanjay Dutt though a little wheezy and out of rhythm, is heartrendingly avuncular. His breakdown in the courtroom is so raw and unrehearsed it washes away all cynicism. He seems so protective of his “Betu” and so shattered by her violation that we tend to forgive the film’s absolute absence of novelty. A parent grieving over a daughter’s rape is not just familiar territory it is also a territory that threatens to explode under the weight of overstatement in our cinema.
With rather unnecessary detailing Bhoomi charts out the daughter’s rape. Shot in a ramshackle single theatre ironically named Bhagwan Talkies, the gangrape is filmed against a backdrop of a film being screened within the film. In this way we are reminded of how cinema is responsible for an increase in sex crimes.But isn’t that exactly what the film does? For a very long time the trio of rapists indulge in a prolonged sexual torture by threatening the girl emotionally and physically. Some of the scenes showing Bhoomi’s humiliation move you. The others just seem like more of the same thing heated up and served steaming hot.
The narrative also suffers from serious lapses of continuity. In one overnight sequence as Dutt sits by his unconscious daughter’s hospital bedside his nails go from grown to clipped . Maybe he got bored sitting around doing nothing.
If the film holds so well it’s because of the father-daughter chemistry, so vivid and vital it nourishes the arid arteries of this done-to-death plot. Polish cinematographer Artur Zurawski shoots Dutt and Rao in deep shades of love and empathy, overriding the corny dialogues and schmaltzy situations to the point where we no longer mind the narrative’s excessive violence.
Clearly Omung Kumar is influenced by Sanjay Leela Bhansali specially in the climax where Zurawski’s cam- era captures hordes of rustic women from an aerial shot, letting their veils(a symbol of their collective izzat) float down after the plunging figure of the rapist. It’s a gorgeous moment celebrating a woman’s right to protect her body and mind from invasion.
Bhoomi could have been a much greater achievement if it had avoided all the familiar stereotypes of rape-and-revenge dramas.But Agra, and the Dutt-Rao chemistry save the day and elevate the film to a superior show of strength where a rapist is not allowed to get away with a sickeningly sexist statement such as this: “Women get raped all the time. Why did you have to get so worked up?” IANS