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.

[urasay]

@poonam, i think phulmani coming back to rukminibai should be seen in the same... (i cant find the exact word but 'frame' or something on those lines)frame as zeenat fleeing the kotha. made more sense to me that way. i found the ending very intriguing.
one flees from something while the other comes to it.
oh! my fav part was the czeh made jawa on which zeenat flees ;)

[VIRGINIA]

I don't like this as much as other Shyam Benegal films I've seen, I thought there was something wrong with the dramatic pacing of it - though we're tipped off ot the problem at the beginning, when the rich guy buys the property, I thought it went a long time before anything happened and there was alack of tension leading up to it - conflict introduced, forgotten, returned to . . .
.
BUT - I really admired the frank brutality of Shabana's character, along with her absolute pragmatism - things were how they were and she did what she had to do -- and her tenderness toward Smita's character.
.
Ending I thought - that girl was not running to Shabana, she was running away from the women's social work refuge. They met on wilderness ground. She did not want to be a prostitute or a sheltered woman. Shabana was going to resume her efforts to exploit her, and in this felt "saved."

[Raul]

Well the ending is open ended.

Smita Patil runs with her step brother, but actually wants to take his money and run off to start a new life again. She gets motivated by Amrish Puri's dialogue of being free from the cage like the parrot. She kisses her younger brothers forehead lovingly once and for all as she cant explain their relationship to him or how she has realised she cant mate her brother!

Also Shabana prays to the Shivling and it shows that god gives her another chance to continue living. With the mute girl running away from the welfare home. The lady Shanti Devi does mention that Phoolmani is not mentally sound in one of the scenes earlier, with Kulbushan Karbhanda and is always finding ways to run away. This also was an open ended suggestion stating that possible things were possibly not right in that welfare center.

Now it is open ended in the end to decide whether Phoolmani was running away, and with no place to go was

1) Running back to Rukmini Bai as she was her only refuge now and that she rather preferred staying and working for her than anything else or

2) She was plain running away and happened to come Shabana's way. Whereby Shabana's wish is fulfilled in a way, so she could use this woman to make a livelihood again. However, this option is lesser possible as Phoolmani running away from the welfare center which was in the heart of the city and ending up right at where Shabana's new location on the outskirts is slightly far fetched. Id stick to option One.

The movie has a strong story. While the Mandi does give these women a livelihood, horny men a chance to mate and relive themselves without harming normal girls otherwise, etc. it also talks about the fact that these women have nothing in life to do if they dont stay prostitutes.

Also the fact that the MANDI comprises of girls who we call prostitutes but they are actually daughters of many respectable and regular normal society people itself who are never acknowledged. e.g Smita Patil being the daughter of a renowned and respected man of society itself. Yet we have prejudices against them.

The movie also had a few flaws. For instance, Shabana Azmi prays to the Shivling and Phoolmani runs her way. She is happy and states that GOD DONT MAKE US LEAVE THIS PLACE now.. a sarcastic comment to the fact that she mistakingly asked Baba Khadaksha to leave the earlier place in the outskirts of the city.

That is a good comment in terms of the sarcastic tone and character of Rukmini bai. But the point is WHICH PLACE was she talking about? The rocky area out there ? And how would she rebuild anything out there in the first place ?

OVERALL, A brilliant movie! I love this movie for Shabana's acting and her ability to HONESTLY GET INTO THE SKIN OF THE CHARACTER ( cliched term but not many actresses who talk about this aspect usually succeed at it)

For instance, when she is trying to get Mr. Aggarwal to let her stay in the old house, she pretends to be sick and while sounding cranky and unhappy there is lot of sarcasm in her tone too. When Aggarwal tells her he is in debt and his house is going to be mortgaged, she ends up with a reaction which has sarcasm as well as true sympathy towards the man.. she says SAHI??????? which basically doenst mean the direct english interpretation that is Correct but means REALLY?????

The woman is a genuis in her art, and so is Smita Patil whose voice I love. The confidence is mainly in Patils voice. I feel her emotions more rampantly through her fantastic voice moreso than in her facial expressions which is an achievement !

Shabana does have better facial expressions than Patil overall but then again thats only my personal opinion!

The step brother is soooo cute and nerdy, he is the perfect choice for the role. Another aspect is that the love angle of Patil and the boy is not properly developed.. He falls in love with her in the first scene, and then in the second scene is demanding to be with her which is slightly far fetched again. There should have been more development of the love angle!

[carla]

Wow, Raul, thank you for those detailed thoughts. It's lovely to find people who are as inspired to verbosity by Hindi films as I myself have been! :)