Anubhav Sinha’s stunning film says a lot of things we don’t really want to hear about social discrimination in the cow belt areas. Article 15 takes us to a dusty little town in Uttar Pradesh where a sophisticated liberal cop (Khurrana) joins duty and immediately stumbles onto a horrific caste crime when two girls are gang-raped and hung from a tree. A third girl is missing. Sinha imparts to the search for the girl a ‘thriller’ element that in no way over-dramatizes the film’s incessantly grim mood. The director has no songs even in the background because there is nothing to sing about. Not now. Not here.
In telling this hideously messy tale, Sinha makes no effort to spare us the details. The caste system and gender discrimination are so deeply embedded in the social fabric of rural India that men, or at least a section of them, feel entitled to teach women a lesson if they don’t comply.
In my favourite sequence of this exceptionally relevant drama the cop-hero interrogates the main accused in the gang-rape. Listen to the casual almost blasé tone in which the criminal tells the cop Ayan Ranjan why the women they raped and killed so brutally had to be a taught a lesson. I heard the same unrepentant tone in the Netflix series Delhi Crime when one of the rapists tells the cop the girl had to be put in her place.
The sequence is chilling for the way the masculine mind works in a male-dominated society.
I would have liked to see Khurrana’s rage more overtly expressed in the scene above. But for reasons best known to this brave actor and his braver director, the performance invariably holds back, checks itself from losing its cool. It is the sign of a civilized bureaucrat’s struggle with his self to cling to his core of humanism and civility while all around him the world crumbles and collapses into heap of brutality incivility.
The film has an exceptionally astute sense of pitch and tone. Though the background score is a wee flashy, Anubhav Sinha never over-punctuates his drama. He is not afraid to let the world he recreates glisten with the sweat of inhuman conduct. The actors are all so clued into the director’s kingdom of the damned that they blissfully slip into their roles with no apprehension of tripping over the abyss of self-conscious authenticity.
Besides Khurrana who brings a feeling of bridled indignation to every scene, the film’s other hero is Ewan Mulligan’s cinematography .It doesn’t miss a single detail in the ravage and chaos of the heartland, so unpolished and yet do untouched. The sound design is impeccable, catching incidental noises in the small town like butterflies in a moth jar.
Article 15 is a film that must be seen by every Indian. Not because it tells us something new. But because what it tells us ought to become irrelevant to our society by now. But oppression, like the films on oppression, have a knack of coming back when we feel it is gone.
At one point the hero confesses he needs to “un mess” the mess created by social discrimination. It is a mean savage world out there for women and men of meagre income. That Anubhav Sinha takes on the onus of splitting wide open the debate between the haves and have-nots is no small achievement. The director deserves a standing ovation for putting the cinema of social awakening back on screen without any self-congratulation.
In one word, Article 15 is spellbinding. It is everything that cinema was always meant to be. Though provoking, questioning, disturbing and ultimately cathartic because the cop-hero (played with a simmering intensity by Ayushmann Khurrana) succeeds in getting justice for the wronged. In real life it is different, though. And in giving the underdogs of the film a satisfying closure director Anubhav Sinha (who has clearly turned a new leaf after Mulk) and his co-writer (Gaurav Solanki) remind us that happy endings are for the movies, and that we are getting one here because, hey, no matter how authentic, Article 15 is a film after all.
Anubhav Sinha Spoke To Subhash K Jha On Article 15
“What do I say about Article 15. I mean the Article itself and the film. They changed me as an individual forever. Also as a filmmaker. We were having so much fun making it that we never realised that it will have such a long-lasting impact on the audience. I am thankful to the entire team and the audience. This is probably the most humbling film for me till date. Article 15 prohibits any kind of discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, or religion. My film is about the discrimination we practice on various levels.I was very sure I wanted Ayushmann Khurrana for the character of the cop protagonist. Once Ayushmann said yes, everything fell into place.I didn’t plan to make Mulk or Article 15. Nor did I anticipate that Mulk would be seen as a new beginning in my career. It’s just that these were stories that had to be told.The times are such when any Indian with a conscience would refuse to keep silent. Article 15 was an investigative drama where the audience too is an accused party.I didn’t feel seminal at the time but we knew our script was good. We didn’t expect good box office. Cinema is just 125 years old. This venom of caste discrimination is a few thousand years old. Before the film’s release there were many protests against Article 15. I received a threat that I must remove the word ‘Brahmin’ from the film. So I was not very clear what they wanted. I am also wondering if they knew what they wanted.Or were they simply protesting because films with a strong political content are expected to be targeted?The film was cleared by the censor board with nominal cuts for audiences of all ages.And yet I was grappling with protesters for weeks before release . It was seriously stressful pre-release time for me. I had to deal with the Brahmin Samaj and the Karni Sena. Theatres were threatened. So advance booking didn’t open in some places. Then there was a court petition asking for a stay order on our film. It was exhausting!”
Anubhav Sinha actually used Bob Dylan’s Blowin In The Wind in Article 15.
“Didn’t it fit in beautifully. ‘How many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn’t see’. I’m lucky Mr Dylan allowed me the rights. I used to play this song on set all day. Never knew I will end up using it in the film. Bob Dylan’s Blowin In The Wind was written into the script of Article 15. It was the only song I wanted in my film. It encapsulates the spirit of exploration and salvation that my hero Ayushmann Khurrana goes through.I love the song’s lyrics specially, ‘How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?’ These words epitomized my film.I didn’t know where to start the process. I knew it would be a long-drawn process, and expensive, and at the end of I may not be able to afford it. I got in touch with a friend in the US who get in touch with another friend who knew Bob Dylan’s manager Jeff Rosen. Finally I spoke to Rosen and told him what we required. To my surprise he was very supportive. He told us to use the song and pay whatever token amount we could afford.It could’ve been a lot lot more than we could afford. I don’t know what I’d have done then. But I wouldn’t have made the film without Dylan’s song. What we paid is a big dent to our budget. But worth every penny.
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