One of the first visuals of the movie Assi is a scene where a man named Kartik is filming the highway traffic in broad daylight, and he says that, from a distance, everything seems quite normal. A few hours later, we see a very similar visual of a car moving on the same road, but this time, even though it seems very normal, we know that what is happening inside that car was inhuman. On paper, Assi might seem like one more rant about our justice system’s way of waiting for proofs and helping the rapists escape without capital punishment. However, the impact and filmmaking brilliance of this movie lie in its focus on what needs to be addressed, in a society where we are not addressing the fundamental problem, but create fan clubs for those who provide instant justice. From the mindsets of people, policing, parenting, and even cinema, Anubhav Sinha critiques the inefficient approach of society, and he succeeds in making us think while leaving the theater.
Parima, a woman from Kerala, is a school teacher, and she is living in Delhi with her husband Vinay and their son. One day, while returning home after attending a farewell party of her colleague, Parima was raped by a group of men in a moving car. Even though Parima was taken to the hospital on the very next day, the incident had shattered her. What we see in Assi is the trial that happens in the court, where Parima hardly gets support from the judicial system.
I wouldn’t say Assi is not a gallery-pleasing movie. Creative liberties were taken by Anubhav Sinha to convey what he wanted to talk about. However, the nature of those creative liberties is different, and it keeps the movie grounded. The main agenda of the movie is not about finding closure and giving us the comfort of seeing a fictional solution to a persistent problem. The film wants us to think about the inefficiency of the system, starting from the family and schools. There is a moment in the movie where the survivor says she is now in a place where the news about someone’s death makes her happy, and that wasn’t her definition of happiness. And there are also these seemingly lighter conversations between the lawyer and the survivor about the perception of justice.
If you look at the screenplay of the movie, you can see that every conventional character you associate with a movie of this nature is there in it. But none of them are in that black and white space of evil and good. The father of one of the accused, who helps them in deep cleaning the vehicle, doesn’t justify his son’s act, and shockingly, it was the mother who supported the idea of protecting their son at any cost. A cop with a history of corruption is not taking the side of the criminals. Parima’s school denies her a chance to work there again, and typically, the reason would be the school’s image, but here, the reason was the mindset of the students. Interestingly enough, the movie isn’t wasting time by showing the hurdles or incompetence of the police in finding the criminals. Instead, it focuses on their wrongdoing at a later stage.
One of the areas where I felt the movie was getting derailed was when a vigilante was introduced into the plot. But Anubhav Sinha uses that character to address one of the most wrongly appreciated trends in India, which needs to be called out. There are people among us who see a rape accused or a convicted getting killed by a stranger or by the police in encounters, and think that the death has provided justice to the survivor. By becoming a movie that explores the thought process of a survivor, Assi manages to shut down the arguments of those who look at the idea of justice as an over-the-top masala movie. In the movie, Taapsee Pannu’s character is getting attacked for speaking against the “vigilante justice” guy.
Anubhav Sinha is someone who gives great emphasis on visual storytelling. In this collaboration with Ewan Mulligan, we can see him playing with the saturation levels of the visuals. The subject matter has made the movie opt for a color palette with extremely minimal colors, and if we look at the main characters, they are all wearing any combination of black and white. When the story moves to the court, they have almost removed all the colors from the frame, and the visuals are very close to being black and white. Even though the movie is A certified and won’t be seen by young kids (in an ideal world), we can see Anubhav Sinha purposefully using POV shots from the perspective of Parima’s kid; perhaps letting us know, the kids are watching. Gaurav Solanki, who collaborated with Sinha in Article 15, is back with him in this project. The way they added a hit-and-run case into the movie was a simple yet effective way to broaden the scope of the movie, as it was also talking about the psychological impact things have on people who couldn’t get justice.
Taapsee Pannu makes a strong comeback with the character of the lawyer Raavi. From the kind of natural and angry counterarguments to presenting the despair of that character, especially in the last two instances, one with the ink and the other with the closing statement, she presented that character very effectively on screen. Kani Kusruti, as the survivor Parima, was brilliant in portraying the eventful, traumatic journey of that character. More than the dialogue-heavy part, I thought the recovering phase, in which she conveyed her concerns with her husband and lawyer, showcased the best side of her performance. Kumud Mishra’s Kartik, in the beginning, felt like an odd character. But as the story progressed, we got a proper idea about the history of this character, and that justifies the tone of the performance. Satyajit Sharma, as the opposition lawyer, plays the unlikable character with all those inhuman questions in the most real way possible. Revathy’s Judge character mostly conveys her stand in the most restrained manner, and she was pretty good at it. Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, as the partner of Parima, who has clarity and doesn’t go after theatrics, was really good. Manoj Pahwa, as the father of the accused, was memorable. Anubhav Sinha gets the support of the best in the business for small roles with names like Naseeruddin Shah, Supriya Pathak, and Seema Pahwa, and my favorite among them was the teacher character played by Seema Pahwa.
Towards the end of the movie, Anubhav Sinha uses the creative liberty and puts kids in the middle of courtroom procedures. It was a deliberate move to emphasize the point the movie wanted to say. Which is to focus on the upcoming generation and to be very aware of what your kids are up to. On multiple occasions, we can see the movie dragging kids into situations where we don’t usually place them, and I thought it was a way of showing them the reality before asking them to “do better than us.”
