NYIFF-G5A Film Festival Reviews, The Threshold: I’ll take your leave

A good old joke goes like this:

An ideal marriage is one wherein two people become one.

The problems arise when they want to decide which one.

It goes without saying that marriage is no joke, and two people can never really become one. I have seen a couple that was telepathically on the same wave-length and usually spoke the same words in unison, without any previous arrangement to this end, go through a bitter divorce. And we all have seen some husbands and wives celebrate their diamond anniversary like blushing teenagers.

If there is a separation on the cards, either a divorce or a staying apart arrangement, where, when and how does it all begin? How do two persons, apparently happily married, suddenly find themselves on the threshold, at the beginning of the end? Cinematographer and theatre figure Pushan Kripalani draws on Russian and American plays about relationships under scanners, and maybe that wee bit form Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage, to present a tale which is as real as it gets, and as performance-driven as any palpably pulsating drama.  

Married for about twenty-five years, a North Indian couple, around 60, are all set for separation the day after their son’s wedding reception at their mountain getaway, because the wife suddenly says she wants to leave him and go away the next morning. This declaration opens up a marathon conversation that proceeds into an endless day. Even as the couple, mainly the man, tries to get to the heart of the matter, they find the big questions of their lives beyond their grasp. They are two people, isolated in a house in the hills, preparing for the harsh Himalayan winter, confronting an existential crisis, and trying to find themselves, one last time.

After the screening, cinematographer, director and part writer Pushan Kripalani revealed on Skype that lyricist-writer Kausar Munir came up with the story premise trigger that a wife decides to leave her husband the day after their son gets married. Actors Rajit Kapur and Neena Gupta then dug into their own real-life experiences, as did Kripalani himself, which provided the raw material that Nihaarika Negi [Labours of (an)Other Solipsist; yes a such a word does exist] then wove into a screenplay. Pushan has said about the two characters, “They are our aunts and uncles. They are our parents. They are our grandparents. We will become them.”

The Threshold is a good example of theatre blending with cinema, with a cleverly inter-woven outdoor locale and just about enough camera movement to make it relevant to the screen. Two cameras have been used, both hand-held, of which one is trained and moved with cinematic precision, while the other is slightly shaky and seems to improvise. When asked about this dichotomy, Pushan replied, “I must be getting old, and so the camera shakes.” He was obviously joking. Otherwise, there is great fluidity and imagination at play, both behind the lens and at the megaphone.

All due credit must be given to the years he has spent in theatre, doing direction, acting, music and lighting, in a score of plays, including directing Girsih Karnad’s Hayavadana, the one that made some of the Threshold team put their faith in his film-making abilities. Pushan, who studied in Mumbai and Bristol, is the son of theatre, television and film veteran, Jayant Kripalani, and Gulan, who were both in advertising at one time. Jayant had played Neena Gupta’s husband in the TV hit, Khandan (1985-86), so the connection has been renewed by a next generation Kripalani, exactly 30 years later. And recently, Pushan did the lighting for an event that was conceived and directed by Rajit Kapur. Maybe that got them talking about the Threshold. Anyway, both are die-hard theatre-bugs.

Nihaarika Negi’s microscopic pen (read keyboard) pervades both sensitivities in equal measure, male and female. Not many 87-minute conversations can keep you engaged, so Negi deserves an encomium. After you have seen it all, your sympathies surprisingly tilt towards the husband, the more practical and less scrupulous of the two. Is it because he is the one left behind while she moves on? Or ,is it because he strips his soul bare, albeit one layer at a time, while she seems unsure, and the logic for her momentous decision remains a little nebulous? Open-ended stories are the stuff that keeps audiences’ grey-cells in conjectural overdrive, while the writer/director can just add the disclaimer, “What you saw is what you got!” Now far the performances of the two central players in this screen debut of the much younger Pushan.

Rajit Kapur rocks. Physically, emotionally, reactively, it’s a treat to watch him bare his soul in stages, warts and all, still hang on to his convictions about his questionable motives and self-centred manliness. Ambivalence is a constant, as he keeps conveying alternately that he needs her to feel complete, and also that he finds it outrageous that his wife could actually decide to leave him, so she should consider changing her mind. The only comment I have to make is that he sounds so much like Om Puri, the master actor, 10 years his senior. His Punjabi and the occasional expletive progress and intertwine seamlessly. I wish there was more of Punjabi, in keeping with the tone of the film. If Kapur ever had the trace of self-consciousness in his acting, this film has seen the end of it. There is no question about Rajit and Neena deserving the Best Actor and Best Actress prize for this movie at the New York International Film Festival (NYIFF) held a couple of months ago.

Both Rajit and Neena are the same age, and that would certainly have helped develop chemistry. Kripalani deglamourises both down to a level where you almost feel for the duo. Perhaps more so for Neena, for women tend to use make-up more than men, and actresses, in particular, are deeply concerned about image and looks. As Neena said, “I asked him to let me use just a little bit of lipstick, but he refused.” Gait, over-size sweater (she bought it herself), a scene where she is shown undoing her cummerbund--Neena rises way above any misgivings anyone might have had about her histrionics, and the word is not used here to denote over-dramatisation. Quite the opposite. One thing stays with her, though: her trade-mark stiff upper-lip and vocal quality that goes with a much younger woman, though the notes she strikes are all the right ones. Not having seen all her work, I will go with her when she says, “It’s the most beautiful work I have done so far.”

Kausar Munir comes in again as lyricist, suitably abstract songs, capably tuned by Tapas Relia. Sound Design by Baylon Fonseca and Dhiman Karmakar is bare and stark, with the pronounced sound of breathing filling-in very often for background music.

Pushan’s old friends Vishal Dhandhia and Akshat Shah have produced the film, for Blackboxers Productions.

A title that is fairly common, a Threshold having been made in the west almost in tandem, this vehicle crossed The Threshold for the first time at MAMI’s Mumbai Film Festival in October 2015. It is not the kind of film that will have many screenings, and a theatrical release looks like a remote possibility. But these days, there so many alternative platforms.

Rating: *** ½

Trailer:

Titbit

“Whenever I get nostalgic about Bengali food I get some good dab (also spelt daab) chingri from Hooghly,”

--Jayant Kripalani, in 2008, referring to a Bengali take-away that Pushan runs/ran in Mumbai. Jayant, the son a laundry-owner, was born and raised in Kolkata.

It was photographer Elisha Walia

It was Elisha's Walia birthday yesterday. She' the fair maiden flitting in an out, carrying a Canon and mono-pod. A bout of voral infetion did not deter her from coming to work on the 19th. I wasn't invited for the 29th bash (or has it been held over till today?). Will it spill over on the 21st? Hope so. meanwhile: HBTY< HBTY, HBDE, HBTY!

Bhayank Bombay

27 minutes 15 seconds, English and Hindi with English subtitles
Directors: Alia Sinha, Ankita Bhatkhande, Elisha Walia, Nishajyoti Sharma, Robin Zutshi

The city is not always what it seems to be. There is always a hidden element behind it. Enter a dark murky world of Deserted places, Accidental deaths, Big budget cinema, Urban hyper- development and stories of 500 year old revengeful ghosts. The city (Mumbai) has changed a lot in various terms. Bombay may have morphed into the Mega metropolitan of Mumbai but the spirit of the old city remains- and it is not very happy. Enter the world of “Bhayanak Bombay