Santosh Review: Social subjugation and inheritance interweave in one of the most contemplative deconstructions of power fantasy

In this review, aryantalksfilm aka Aryan Vyas, writes a thoughtful piece on Sandhya Suri's highly-anticipated film Santosh.

Some of the most striking films at any film festival are the ones that tend to say a lot without overstating any of their messages. A lot of films, however, rely on vibes alone, undermining their own narrative interlacing by restoring over the story to heavy-handed didacticism. Writer and director Sandhya Suri’s debut feature, Santosh - which had its premiere at Cannes and is now playing at MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024 - envelopes its themes in its framework of the film in a way that channels the messaging through a quiet aura of contemplation via subdued observation. In doing that, the film makes for one of the most complex, pragmatic and emboldening portrayals of feminism that you'd watch in any film this year. Here's a movie that's as much about how women remain invisible in the country as their very individuation remains immensely filtered through a patriarchal outlook. A kind of prism fails to acknowledge them as individuals who are free to choose what they desire. 

The titular lead, Santosh Saini (Shahana Goswami), is a young widow unaccustomed to working outside such confinements. But when a tragedy strikes, she is forced to venture out by necessity, inheriting her former husband's job from a new government scheme (a clause in Uttar Pradesh that gives legal appointment on compassionate ground). Soon, she finds herself thrust into the state's police force as a routine murder investigation ensues. It's here, amidst the local dynamics and machinations of the systemic and institutional dread, where she must thrive, unlearning ways of her past life while coming to terms with the many cracks of society. In doing so, it lays bare the cynical and rotten heart of communal divisions in contemporary India. The kind that divides that pretend to cloak themselves in the semblance of equity and equality but stand unshaken on pillars of institutionalized misogyny and internalized sexism.

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"It'd go straight to me?" Santosh asks about the money when she first learns about the social scheme that'd lend her the job of a police officer. In the next scene, we watch her alone in the bedroom, smelling her husband's khaki uniform. The framing cleverly uses negative space to occlude the room. Later, she sees the uniform on the balcony from a distance, freshly washed, before she embarks on putting it on. Her grief and striking resilience place her in a position of power as she moves through rural spaces and corridors of power. She’s rarely seen without that uniform, which in itself becomes a lingering cinematic and thematic symbol in the procedure. Most of the unravelings that happen then rely on Santosh's reaction, as the film constantly frames her as the focal point in the labyrinth of injustices. All of it gets reflected in her eyes as she registers, contemplates and eventually internalizes her surroundings. It's in this journey that she must fiercely contest for space in a society preoccupied with socially and morally policing their right to self-determination.

What implies itself to be a fierce feminist empowerment saga then slowly morphs into a careful study of what power truly means in a complex and stratified society. It's when the murder of a 'lower caste' Dalit girl yanks her precinct into a media and political firestorm, the case, headed by a fiery and charismatic Inspector Geeta Sharma (an excellent Sunita Rajwar), must usher Santosh on a path of self-actualization. 

Inheritance, too, then becomes one of the critical recurring thematic motifs. Santosh’s inherited uniform may grant her the status and prestige she had never imagined (or even known exists for women). But it never entirely puts her on par with her male co-counterparts, as the implications of status keep informing the proceedings around. There's a piece of gold ornament that gets passed on later to her by Geeta, which in itself finds its rightful way into one of the best movie endings of the year. But out of all those things, it's the quiet and much more internalized inheritance that ultimately awakens some morality. By the time the movie ends, you realize you've witnessed one of the most organic deconstructions of this power fantasy!

Santosh had its Indian premiere at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival this year! 

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