Vidya Balan’s Natkhat ; Watch it to see delighting mischiefs, and naughty twists : this is our one line review of Vidya Balan short film production along with Ronie Screwala called ‘Natkhat’
Natkhat is a battle against Patriarchy, with naughty twists and mischiefs played brilliantly by Vidya Balan and Young Sonika Patel ( a girl who plays a boy in the film)
Director Shaan Vyas captures the act of being naughty through a female child actor, Sanika Patel, in the role of Sonu and Vidya Balan playing the role of ‘Bahu’ and ‘Maa’ brilliantly in Natkhat, where women are shorn of agency and men get their power from displaying naked machismo.
The film was selected by the Mumbai Film Festival and had a world premiere at the ‘We Are One: A Global Film Festival’
The narrative is simple ; on one side you have a woman covered in a ghoonghat every time a male member of the family is around; and her 7-year-old Sonu is being drawn into a world where gender roles are carved in stone.
In the short film the feisty, Sonu thrives to be like the male role models he sees around him. In a bizarre replay of local teenagers planning rape, he abducts a female classmate but is clueless about what to do after pinning the child down. This does not stop him from casually proud and boastful to his father and grandfather about ‘teaching the girl a lesson’. He tells the male members of his family about how to solve the problem of an insensitive woman: ‘Toh usse utha lo na!’ In one horrifying moment, we witness the man this boy will become.
The first look of the movie Natkhat by vidya balan was brilliant too. Vidya shared the look and wrote “Ek kahaani sunoge…?” Presenting the first look of my first short film both as actor and producer .#Natkhat
“Ek kahaani sunoge…?" Presenting the first look of my first short film both as actor and producer .#Natkhat @RSVPMovies@RonnieScrewvala @FontOfThinking @SanayaIZohrabi @mesopystic pic.twitter.com/tLoiuA7PkG
— vidya balan (@vidya_balan) May 26, 2020
Talking about the film, Vidya had said in a statement, “It is a beautiful and powerful story, which impressed me so much that I decided to act in it as well as make this film.”
She had shared her joy as she turned producer for this short film and in her instagram wrote in the beginning when she embarked her journey to produce the film. She posted “I’m happy and excited to share that a few days ago, I did my first short film as an actor …. The film is called Natkhat and has me in a new role….that of ‘PRODUCER‘ …. I never had plans to turn producer but the story written by @annukampa_harsh and #ShaanVyas propelled me in that direction …Its been a new and precious experience working with @shaanvs the director and his team, and to be partnering with #RonnieScrewvala & @rsvpmovies @sanayairanizohrabi on this beautiful and powerful story. Can’t wait to share it with my world and hoping that it speaks to you like it did to me #natkhat #ronniescrewvala.”
In the film Vidya Balan an oozes simplicity and adds subtle energy into her role as a mother and daughter in law. Dressed in traditional simple rural saris with a mangalsutra in place, her character runs parallel to her son’s story. With bruises that are harder to explain with each passing day, she is both the victim and pivotal to the evolution in this story. Her vulnerability is matched by young Sanika, who goes from entitled to empowered in the space of half an hour.
What is evocative in the short duration of the film is when the moment it dawns on the child that his mother is the victim of the same patriarchy that he is so actively championing.
Natkhat in short is all about how a woman effectively battles patriarchy. And, vidya balan excels in her mission. She is brilliant to the extent of evoking thoughts in the minds of the viewer as a homemaker in a patriarchal setup, who learns her little school-going son Sonu is gravitating towards misogyny and disregard for the other gender just like the men in her family.
She is also a very concerned mom on how her son will grow up around men, who are always tuned to gender showmanship, and how she needs to go an extra mile to break down the wheels of patriarchy in her family.
The scenes in the film also makes you very thoughtful and absorbed, when she ( vidya balan ) exposes her scars, both psychological and physical, to her son every day after getting a thrashing from her husband the previous night. She mumbles through swollen lips and continues to gaze at her son’s curious face with a blackened eye. At some point, she narrates Urmi’s tale from Mahabharata to Sonu, making him realise slowly and surely, that his actions hold consequences in ways he cannot imagine, and they will only perpetuate the vicious cycle of patriarchy that will consume his loved ones, including his mother.
The interesting element of the movie is the son Sonu, is actually played by a girl, Miss Sanika Patel. Given the theme of the film, it is fairly interesting the casting director Annukampa chooses a girl to play a boy arrested by patriarchy. She also doubles up as the acting coach for the children, and manages to elicit genuine reactions of mischief, menace, vulnerability, curiosity, and hope.
It is a good film to watch, short and sweet. Vidya in her role as mother and Sanika Patel as her son are very impressive.
On the work front, Vidya Balan was last seen in the Akshay Kumar multi-starrer Mission Mangal. Her next release is Shakuntala bopic, which is all set to stream online at Amazon Prime Video. The film is based on the life of Shakuntala Devi, nicknamed the “human computer” for her innate ability to make incredibly complex calculations within seconds