The latest film from leading filmmaker Mani Ratnam, Yuva is the story of three young men in Kolkata who are dramatically brought together one day on a Hoogly bridge and their lives connected forever. It is a tale of youth and politics in urban and rural India complete with thugs, corrupt and criminal politicians, vote buying and the difficult negotiation of an ever-growing wealth and educational gap. It is also a violent action film, with lynch mobs, hired thugs, kidnapping, intimidation and attempted murder to rival Tarantino's 'Kill Bill'. The full house crowd at the Novelty cinema in downtown Mumbai revelled in the lengthy and bloody fight scenes and corny love sequences.
Yuva has been met with mixed reviews in the Bollywood press, critical of its often clichéd romance story lines and its plot similarities with Mexican director Alejandro Inarritu's Amores Perros, but also in praise the cast, choreography, cinematography and soundtrack - all extremely important factors in any Bollywood film. But what of the hyper-political main plot and the centrality of violence within it, particularly given the recent election?
The three main protagonists in the film, Lallan (Abhishek Bachchan), Michael (Ajay Devgan) and Arjun (Vivek Oberoi) are designed to represent different aspects and meanings of 'youth' in India today. Lallan, a product of a hard life growing up in the Kolkata slums is a thug and wife beater. Michael is a brilliant and inspirational student leader with charisma and fearlessness. A modern day Indian 'Robin Hood' he takes on Lallan and his fellow hired thugs with exceptional martial arts skill. The third is Arjun, a middle class student whose only interests appear to be girls and getting to America. Their lives come together when Lallan is hired by a local politician to eliminate Michael, who he regards as a genuine threat to his chances for re-election. Arjun, who is busy serenading his girlfriend at the time, witnesses the shooting and saves Michael from certain death in the Hoogly.
Where the first half of the movie is concerned with the individual stories of the men and importantly, their love lives, the second half is a commentary on local politics in India today. Michael recovers and with his now faithful right-hand man Arjun, fights back by campaigning rigorously through the villages, educating the people about their freedom to choose their government. The fourth male character in the film is Lallan's employer, a wily and utterly bent local politician (Om Puri). His character could be drawn from any of a long list of politicians in India today for whom the 'Dance of Democracy' involves intimidation of voters and vote buying from the poor. Campaign tactics such as these, although officially condemned with some attempts at policing, are carried out with seeming audacity and lack of accountability.
While the depiction of criminal politicians and the message of voters' freedom is a good one, the most problematic message of the film is its depiction of violence as an essential political tool. An example of the apparent synthesis between politics and violence recently hit the headlines in Mumbai, when in a rare case of justice fulfilled a leader of the Shiv Sena was sentenced to life imprisonment for the kidnapping and murder of an 11-year-old boy, the son of a businessman. Though the legal victory was an uncommon event, seemingly the crime and its agents were not so surprising.
The absence of critical reflection in the media on this aspect of Yuva's plot at a time of hyper-political interest with the election of a new government seems more than simply an oversight. The film should leave viewers asking questions about accountability and impunity. Was the criminal politician ever exposed, or did no one mind his tactics or see them as out of the ordinary?
Yuva also depicts the clash between middle class aspirations in India today with the obligations of this educated and privileged group. Arjun seeks to leave behind the responsibilities to his family and girlfriend to pursue the riches and freedoms America promises. It is a dream shared by the thousands of students who head off abroad, most to the USA, to study every year. For Arjun, the decision to stay in India becomes a moral one. Lallan also faces critical moral dilemmas, but unlike Arjun he is a victim of a system that has kept him oppressed, less alert to the error of his ways.
Whilst essentially a masculine tale the women in Yuva also have their
own aspirations and make some strong claims for a public and modern role for women in
relationships and in society, but they are essentially characters in supporting roles
to their male partners. In the case of Lallan's wife Sashi (Rani Mukherjee), they are also victims of domestic violence and hopeless love. Despite the abuse she stays with her husband, convinced that she has the ability to make him a better man. Although director Ratnam argues that Sashi is the strongest female character portrayed in the film, this was largely lost on most of those in the crowd at the Novelty. A disturbing moment occurred during a scene towards the end of the film after Sashi has been battered and forced to abort her child to save it from a like existence. Clearly despairing she finally elicits an outburst about the betrayal of men. It was the cause of great laughter for the mainly male crowd. The other women characters in the film are middle class and educated and agents of their own destinies. They make strong decisions that challenge tradition and their own 'female' emotions, but they too stop short of making in-roads into the serious man's world of political combat.
In the film's final scenes when Michael and Arjun take their newly won seats in the parliament, they are surrounded by men - all dressed in white kurta-pyjamas and sporting grey hair, to contrast not at all subtly with the jeans and gel the young guns are sporting - but no women. In the recent national election, of the 586 seats contested in the Lok Sabha women occupy a mere 44 seats, a decrease from a previous high of 48 seats after the 1999 election. One woman has been appointed to the 24-seat cabinet. Up until this final stage of the film, the obvious candidate for a seat alongside Michael in the Lok Sabha was surely his faithful, intelligent and forthright girlfriend, who joined him tirelessly on the campaign trail.
For many, and particularly for its target audience, the yuva, this film will have a message of hope and empowerment, of good triumphing over evil. Sadly this message is accompanied by the reality that in Indian politics today the spinning wheel is clearly not weapon enough.
