Mandi (1983)

मंडी

Shyam Benegal films often explore broad social themes through a closely focused lens, in detailed studies of relationships among a handful of people.  Mandi ("market") is broader in scope, featuring a large number of characters whose relationships form an intricate web in which concepts like loyalty, morality, and duplicity are tangled.  A wry film with a healthy dose of black comedy, Mandi presents a sarcastic look at the tension between venerable but questionable traditions and modernity in its various forms. 

Rukmini bai (Shabana Azmi) is a madam who runs her brothel with a stern and demanding hand.  Aided by her melancholy houseboy Dhungrus (Naseeruddin Shah), Rukmini is protective of her girls, especially the brothel's virginal prize, Zeenat (Smita Patil), who is permitted to spend her days practicing her music and kathak instead of submitting to the kotha's more lascivious customers.  When a sanctimonious moralist, Shanti Devi (Gita Siddharth), flexes her political muscle in an attempt to drive the brothel out of town, Rukmini turns to her landlord Mr. Gupta (Kulbushan Kharbanda) for assistance, but finds in him only a conditional ally.  Caught in the crossfire is the town's mayor, Agrawal (Saeed Jaffrey), who is under the powerful Shanti Devi's thumb but also beholden to Rukmini, lest she air his own dirty laundry.  Rounding out the vast network of players is a terrified mute girl (Sreela Majumdar) married under pretext and sold by her new husband to Rukmini; a dirty-minded photographer (Om Puri) who prowls around trying to snap naked pictures of the tawaifs; a police-wala who does his "night duty" at the brothel; Agrawal's son, engaged to Gupta's daughter but madly in love with Zeenat; Shanti Devi's beleaguered assistant (Pankaj Kapur); a crazed and pious hermit (Amrish Puri) who shows Rukmini how to extract wishes from a variety of holy objects; and all the girls of the brothel (including Soni Razdan and Ila Arun), with their varying levels of satisfaction and loyalty to Rukmini.

That's an awful lot to squeeze into a film, and the squeezing does, to some degree, compress Benegal's characters into two dimensions.  The outstanding talent of the cast offers some compensation, though, allowing each character to be vividly rendered despite the tendency toward archetypy.  The darkly comic tone of the entire film enhances the vividness of the characterizations.  Without it, the film would collapse under the weight of its themes.  Delivering the tale with archness, teetering on the brink of tumbling over the top, allows the actors a breadth of expression that helps them pop out of the screen.  Amrish Puri's bug-eyed ascetic, Saeed Jaffrey's nervously buffoonish aristocrat, Naseeruddin Shah's droopy drunk - each plays to the back of the house in a departure from Benegal's usual hyper-realist style, yet the broad style is precisely what renders each of them memorable. 

Shabana Azmi's turn is the broadest of them all, and her performance is deliciously physical and yet still evoactively subtle.  Rukmini flits between angry snarls and obsequious smiles at a moment's notice, one minute dripping with maternal concern and the next barking orders like a foreman.  And she cannot resist a mirror, interrupting herself often, whether mid-tirade, mid-sob, or even mid-prayer, to smooth a stray strand of hair.  If there is an overarching mood to the changeable Rukmini, it's that she never for a moment displays an ounce of sincerity.  Indeed, most of the characters in Mandi are somehow scheming, double-crossing, or working both sides against the middle.  From the brothel girls whose loyalty to Rukmini is fragile and fleeting, to Zeenat who is not nearly as ingenuous as she seems, and even to the pompous Shanti Devi who (we learn from a throw-away line of Rukmini's) is having an affair with her own son-in-law, each of the characters is concealing a card or two.  And it is this ubiquitous duplicity that gives Mandi its entertaining edge -  it's hard not to laugh watching these colorful characters squirm, hedge, and lie through their teeth. 

Mandi's final scene is a little bit puzzling, but the ultimate message may be that degradation is in the eye of the beholder, and that perhaps the concealed hypocrisy of those who call themselves modern and upright is just as oppressive as the ancient traditions of the kotha.  Whatever the true moral of this amorality tale may be, though, it is a terrific film. 

Comments

[Meera]

Hi Carla

Good review as usual.

I saw this movie ages ago and vaguely remember the ending scene ie the dumb girl fleeing the brothel - I guess it sort of represents an outlet of hope ie freedom for the poor and oppressed. I may have to watch the movie again for the ending bit.

I think Shabana did a good job in this movie which is not surprising considering her enormous talent.

[shakthi]

Great review, especially like your take on the ingenuity part. Personally this is my favorite Benegal films, perhaps of Shabana Azmi's films too -- Ismail Merchant tried to employ her vivacious duplicity in "In Custody" years later, but in no way comparable with the Rukmini role in "Mandi", but that's possibly due to audience's preference of black humor over sentimental sadness?

The sarcastic tone strikes me most is Rukmini's confrontation with Shanti Devi. Our time is not devoid of hypocritical feminists like that, "30 ways of looking at Hillary", to name a few.

[a ppcc representative]

What a wonderful film! A PPCC favorite, and definitely one of our favorite Parallel Films. Naseer, Shabana, Om, Amrish, Saeed, Smita! It's hard not to be bedazzled by all that talent, too.

You make very good points on the ensemble being a bit broadly painted and archetypal. Personally, I love stories like that, it's reassuring to see characters fit together like puzzle pieces. And everyone gets to play to their strengths - as you say, Amrish's bug eyes, Naseer's hang-dog expressions. And Om's preening! So rarely seen and yet he's such an effective strutting peacock when he's allowed to be. And Shabana of course, ruling over everyone. She was hilarious! Wonderful points on her underlying vanity and insincerity. Ha!

I think what was also charming about the film was how visually colorful and sharp it was; the brothel scenes, and then that segment when they have to leave town and set up shop on the outskirts. The setting felt very intimate, never as claustrophobic as you'd think such a narrow view (anonymous village, anonymous countryside) would be.

[poonam]

Hi. Can anyone throw some more light on the film's ending scene...i am a little confused as to what the director wanted to convey through that scene...what was it that rukmini found after praying to the shivling that made her so happy after seeing the dumb girl flee from the ashram??? Please explain....

[carla]

Thanks for all the great comments on this terrific film everyone.

Poonam, I was confused by the ending too. The mute girl's sudden appearance - Rukmini exclaims that the girl must have escaped from Shanti Devi's charity home or ashram - seems to suggest that life amongst the hypocritical do-gooders wasn't so terrific after all and the girl decided she'd rather stay with Rukmini. But I wasn't sure entirely what to make of it.

It occurs to me that as much as I love Shyam Benegal I often find the endings of his films somewhat abrupt and puzzling.

[Slowburn]

Mandi is one of my all time favorites. Scary and appalling as it was in places (like the mute's terrified realization that she's been sold by her husband), it has humor. And like Manthan, also a Benegal movie, it has lovely music.

What I can live without ever watching again is Nishaant. A movie that was entirely horrifyign when I first saw it (at age 17) and with a depressingly conclusive ending.

BTW, I also recommend two other Benegal movies - Trikaal and Kalyug.

[Akshay Shah]

Hey there filmigeek..what a wonderful review as always! Sorry I haven't been in touch, recently located to Sydney and been settling down etc....I see I have a LOT of catching up to do(the ANAND review is screaming my name) and glad to see you going great guns reviewing such a vast specturm of films..

Aap Ka Fan

A.Shah

[carla]

Akshay, good to see you as always! Your comments are wonderful for my ego. I've been absent a bit myself so I appreciate the encouragement.

Slowburn - thanks for the recommendations. I am a huge Benegal fan and will definitely get to those two eventually. Next Benegal in the queue for me is *Bhumika*. As to *Nishaant* - yipes! I can't imagine the kind of impression its bleak, depressing tale would leave on me had I seen it when I was 17! It's tough watch, you're right about the ending.

[ajnabi]

Great review. I'm fascinated by Shabana Azmi so it's good to discover viewing recommendations. Your reviews cover such a wide range, I'm very impressed with your diversity!

[carla]

Thank you ajnabi - I am glad you found the blog and look forward to reading your thoughts on the films I've seen.