Big B as he ought to be
Sarkar demonstrates exactly what he is capable of, says Saibal Chatterjee.
It’s rather strange. On the face of it, Ram Gopal Varma’s latest cinematic probe into the Mumbai underworld, Sarkar, doesn’t have the gritty realism and crackling energy of Satya.It doesn’t possess the sheer style and power of Company either. Yet, it looks and sounds like the best Hindi film that RGV has ever made.
What is it that makes Sarkar work so well? Is it merely the fact that it teams Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan as on-screen father and son for the first time? That would be undermining the contribution of the range of skills that have gone into the making of Sarkar.
For one, the film doesn’t have an item number. So the flow of the dramatic ebbs and tides on which the narrative rides isn’t ever interrupted.
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| What sets Sarkar apart from the ordinary is Amitabh Bachchan in a performance that sees him‘act’ for a change |
Two, it’s a rare film in which RGV resists the temptation of dazzling viewers with his technical virtuosity and sense of pacing. They are both very much in evidence but without either becoming unduly obtrusive.
But above all, what sets the film apart from the ordinary is Amitabh Bachchan in a performance that sees him‘act’ for a change.
Rarely has the veteran actor been allowed to downplay his obvious emotive skills quite to the extent that RGV lets him. The result is one of greatest performances one has seen in a Hindi film in a long, long time.
Carried away by the Big B’s remarkable range an actor, many a Bollywood director (including Sanjay Leela Bhansali) has pushed him into the realms of overacting, if not outright hamming.
Bachchan’s performance as the larger-than-life extra-constitutional authority Subhash Nagre is a fine, sustained study in understatement. That’s a sharp contrast to his star turns in recent films like Black, Bunty aur Babli and Paheli, where he was often made to throw subtlety to the winds. In Sarkar, he is allowed to bank entirely on his eyes and facial muscles to convey emotions and he does so with great panache.
Sarkar demonstrates exactly what Amitabh Bachchan is capable of delivering when he sheds his mannerisms and eschews the pitfalls of high-pitched melodrama.
Sarkar has other fine performances as well. Abhishek Bachchan, who comes into his own in the second half of the film, delivers a nuanced interpretation of the character of Subhash Nagre’s younger son Shankar. Equally classy is Kay Kay Menon, who, as Nagre’s short-tempered elder son Vishnu, captures the conflict between filial allegiance and his thirst for power with stunning skill.
But nothing in the film can tower over the Big B. He is the pivot around which the film and the actors revolve.
Sarkar is essentially a family drama that is placed in the context of a struggle for authority between a set of ambitious, even ruthless, men, but Subhash Nagre’s life is governed by a clear set of principles. Morality figures high on his list of what is sacrosanct.
Neither Satya nor Company had a moral context within which the characters existed: the need for survival on the mean streets obviated the possibility of any adherence to ethics or values. In Sarkar, too, survival is about being on one’s toes all the time, but the headstrong but benignly patriarchal Subhash Nagre chooses to play the game by a set of rules.
Subhash Nagre has a moral core that makes him completely human despite the awesome power he wields over an entire city. And as fleshed out by Amitabh Bachchan, he takes on an extra timorous veneer of vulnerability that provides a sharp and utterly bewitching contrast to his crusty, no-nonsense external cloak of invincibility.
RGV deserves kudos for giving us a Big B that we always knew of but rarely saw on the big screen.