"Sexy " from Sexy Durga was silenced to pave the way for S Durga, and the mindset that tried its best to scuttle filmmaker Sanal Kumar Sasidharan's latest endeavour is exactly what the film is critiquing. Two women share the same name – one is mortal and the other divine – and their journey coincides through a single night in a remote Kerala village.
Durga, the powerful Hindu goddess being carried by her mostly male devotees who seem to be fortified by wild energy as hooks are pierced through their bodies and are hoisted aloft.
In staggering contrast, Durga and Kabeer (Rajshri Deshpande and Kannan Nayar) have the most harrowing experience as they are trying to hitch a ride till the railway station walking through a desolate and dim lit road. She is a Hindu and a North Indian, while he is a Muslim and their frenzied efforts in trying to leave the town suggest that the communal discord their union can give rise to isn't lost on them.
In a tearing rush and visibly unsettled, they get into a van with two men, a move they immediately regret. They try to get out, plead for mercy and all this while we sit holding our breath as Sanal's unrelenting hold on the narrative that is precariously balanced for an ugly, violent, even near fatal end, never falters.
The suggestion of the scary fate that awaits Durga, the mortal who doesn't have the sanctity or safely that the divine pedestal of Durga ensures, is a powerful indictment of the society that we live in where even today women have to constantly negotiate between the two binaries of either being pristinely pure or fallen!
The unfussy and unobtrusive camerawork makes us feel like helpless spectators to situations that sting us with their potential to turn gory and violent any minute. The unvarnished everyday sequences where people belonging to different communities can't love, where a woman is scared to go to the police for help, where anything can happen and answers aren’t easy to come by.
The dialogues are minimal and mostly in Malayalam, but with English subtitles. However, terror needs no subtitles to be understood. It's conveyed through Durga's stricken eyes, Kabeer's stuttering speech, their crawling to the side of the road in fear as Durga is struck by a bout of sickness and begins to retch!
S Durga holds a mirror to society and while doing so, there is never any doubt about Sanal's mastery of his craft or the astonishing performances of the actors.
4 Quints out of 5! See it for even this film to be released is a small victory we must all support and celebrate.
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