At the function commemorating the 45th anniversary of Vinod Chopra Films, the filmmaker had an interesting anecdote to share. He had arranged a screening of ‘12th Fail’ for Naseeruddin Shah. When asked for his response to it, the actor, who had been part of Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s first two films, said, ‘After 45 years you have actually learned to direct a film.’ The filmmaker not only narrated this with childlike glee, he also called upon Naseeruddin Shah, who was present at the function, to substantiate what he had told him. The actor obliged. The audience erupted in laughter.
All of this may have transpired in the spirit of bonhomie and fun that marked the evening. After all, this is a filmmaker who has to his credit, as director, Parinda, a bona fide Indian classic, two of the finest murder mysteries in Hindi cinema, Sazaye Maut and Khamosh, experimenting with songless features at a time they were unheard of, and 1942: A Love Story, the film that brought melody back to Hindi cinema after a decade of cholis and khatiyas.
A filmmaker who has created one of the most successful film production houses in the country, one that has produced some of the biggest blockbusters of the last couple of decades and been the crucible of talents like Vidya Balan, Rajkumar Hirani, Shantanu Moitra, Bejoy Nambiar and Abhijat Joshi, among others. Surely with a filmography like that on his resume, Naseeruddin Shah must have been joking about the filmmaker having ‘finally learned to direct a film’.
However, watching 12th Fail I get a sense that the statement may not have been made all in jest. I begin to understand what might have prompted Naseeruddin Shah to commend the filmmaker thus. I loved Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s early whodunits and his breakout film Parinda. I was a tad disappointed with 1942 and a couple of others. I was wowed by his supreme disdain for popular opinion (just visit that audacious 77-second action sequence that plays out on a black screen in Eklavya, which the director described as ‘cinema without visuals’). I have watched his big blockbusters as a producer with a good deal of amusement and indulgence. And I feel 12th Fail is the most atypical film Vidhu Vinod Chopra has made. For my money, his best. Parinda notwithstanding. It is by miles his warmest, most-from-the-heart film.
To me, Vidhu Vinod Chopra has always come across as a filmmaker at odds with the Bollywood filmmaking ecosystem and his place in it. I know he would probably be the first to deny that. But here’s a filmmaker quixotic in the true sense of the term as defined by the Merriam Webster: ‘foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals, especially marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action’.
Right through his filmography there has been the obsession with the grand framing, the blocking – the shikara with the two lovers framed oh-so-right (Shikara), the way the bridal bed comes apart in the climactic carnage (Parinda), the just-right Dalhousie created in Film City (1942), the camel sequence (Eklavya). Great cinematic moments that speak as much about his fitoor, his passion, as they do about his grounding in film school and in international cinema. Such was his penchant for international standards that in Rangeela filmmaker Ramgopal Varma had a character Steve Kapur – a filmmaker who feels his place is with the Steven Spielbergs and not with the lesser mortals in Bollywood – a hat-tip, as many have speculated, to Vidhu Vinod Chopra.
With 12th Fail, he eschews all that. Gone are the grand designs of his earlier films. Gone also is the pandering to the big box-office bucks that have been the hallmark of the films he has produced. This is one from the heart. This is one told with a passion of a different kind – where the filmmaker is not trying to seduce you with the extravagance of technique or technology or what he can do with frames, but with the simplicity of the telling.
Based on the book of the same name by Anurag Pathak
Of course the origins of the story might account for some of the simplicity. The film is based on the book of the same name by Anurag Pathak that tells the real-life story of Manoj Kumar Sharma (and his wife Shraddha, also a civil services officer) who rose from literally the back of beyond to become an IPS officer. It is just the kind of feel-good, triumph-against-all-odds, David-versus-Goliath tale (where the state and its ‘jami jamai byvastha’, as a narrator calls it, is the Goliath) that could have gone all wrong if it were aggressively pitched as that.
In a triumph of writing, Vidhu Vinod Chopra rids the narrative of everything that is superfluous in the book and makes the film his own baby. He does away with the need for all filmy heroics and lets the basic story do the talking. In an increasingly urban film ambience, this one is resolutely ‘small town’, and authentically so. The village in Chambal from where Manoj originates, his family, the many other aspirants to the civil services he encounters – Pritam Pandey, Gowri Bhaiya, Tutul – in his journey through the dingy and chaotic Mukherjee Nagar area of New Delhi, his own demeanour right through… all retain a charming and lifelike simplicity. The filmmaker is firm about keeping it simple so much so that the wonderfully fluid cinematography (from the sun-soaked village in Chambal to the frenzied mess that is Mukherjee Nagar and the grubby ‘atta chakki’ hovel in Malka Ganj) and the sharp editing never call attention to themselves.
Vikrant Massey’s finest performance yet
At the heart of the film – apart from its terrific writing – lies Vikrant Massey. Though one could debate my contention that 12th Fail is Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s best film, there is no doubt that it is Vikrant Massey’s finest performance yet. I have admired his work in films like Death in the Gunj, Haseen Dilruba, 14 Phere, Love Hostel, but frankly, had I not seen 12th Fail, I would not have thought that Manoj Kumar Sharma was his cup of tea. Right from the first time we see him on his terrace, making ‘chits’ to copy from in his exams the next day, he is a revelation. There’s not a false note in his performance, his body language a case study for the character he essays. The hope and admiration that marks his face when he comes across the police officer who changes the course of his life (played with feeling by Priyanshu Chatterjee), the disarming smile, the despairing eyes, the hesitant walk, his quintessential ‘small-town’ shyness with the girl he is falling in love with, the determined look on his face when he thanks her for being rude to him and showing him the way, the quiet determination and sangfroid in the face of a condescending interviewer in the film’s climactic encounter…. It’s a performance that is exceptional for both its restraint and its range, one that deserves an essay of its own.
So brilliant is Vikrant Massey that one is likely to forget the array of other terrific acts that add so much to the narrative. Sarita Joshi as Manoj’s grandmother is a hoot, particularly in the sequence he exhorts her other grandson to bring the ‘donalli’ to shoot the postman who has come to deliver a suspension notice for her honest son or as she steadfastly refuses to part with her pension (which hides a warm heart as we find out). Medha Shankar as Manoj’s well-meaning friend and inspiration, Shraddha, gives a very good account as does Geeta Agarwal as the mother. Anshuman Pushkar as the indefatigable Gowri Bhaiya to all civil services aspirants at Mukherjee Nagar is a standout and his monologue about the millions who arrive in the capital city like so many herds of ‘bhed bakriya’ with just a dream in their eyes and a willingness to slog it out, is a highlight.
Pather Panchali-inspired score by Shantanu Moitra
As is the background music. Probably as responsible for the film’s emotional heft as Vikrant Massey and the writing. A big shout-out to Shantanu Moitra and Vidhu Vinod Chopra for homing in on this superlative theme so strongly reminiscent of Pandit Ravi Shankar’s score in Pather Panchali. As both the filmmaker and composer admitted, Pather Panchali was indeed an inspiration behind the score, and their efforts to get the right sitar and flute for the same is an interesting story about the making of the film. Like the rest of the film, the background music scores because of its understatement. It’s evocative, comes at the right moments and becomes an important ‘character’ of the film. And in that sequence towards the end as the gates to the UPSC building open up and hundreds of students rush in, the music builds to a goosebump-inducing crescendo, adding immeasurably to the brilliance of the shot-taking.
The understatement is the hallmark of the film. Just consider the climactic interview and the point that Manoj makes about Hindi medium vis-à-vis English medium. It would have been tempting to make a big statement here, about privileges, about class and caste, about the lack of a level playing field – all issues the film is grappling with. But the director and actor are too good to give in. The sequence works because there are no unnecessary cinematic flourishes here, nothing that goes over the top. Like the rest of the film. Just a heartfelt story told with great feeling by a director supremely confident of his craft and the power of his writing. A director who seems to be going back to his roots.
I have always taken statements like ‘the film made me cry’, typical social media hyperbole, with a pinch of salt. I wouldn’t say 12th Fail did. But it did make me shy away from an interview with the filmmaker immediately after the screening – I wanted to soak in the experience of the film, and knew that any question at the time would have been banal. There are enough moments in the film that brought a lump to my throat. That gave me goosebumps. And this without the filmmaker playing to the gallery in any way.
In going against the grain, against the ‘jami jamai byavastha’ of mainstream Bollywood filmmaking, 12th Fail passes with flying colours.
Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri is a film and music buff, editor, publisher, film critic and writer
