British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri’s debut fiction feature, Santosh, is the United Kingdom’s official entry in the best international feature film category at the Oscars. Set in a fictional North Indian town, it is centred on two Indian actors—Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar—in the lead roles of policewomen Santosh and Inspector Sharma, respectively.
The UK-Germany-France co-production, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, is about the young widow Santosh, who is offered her deceased husband’s job in the police. It is while investigating the rape and murder of a minor girl from a disempowered caste, that her own understanding of herself and the world begins, with her senior, Inspector Sharma as her mentor.
CE caught up with Sandhya in Cannes, the day after the film’s premiere. She spoke about the film’s central theme of violence against women, the extensive research that went into it, recreating small town North India on-screen and choosing Shahana and Sunita for the lead roles.
Excerpts:
Films usually come from a personal space. What made you pick up a subject like Santosh for yours?
It is a very personal film to me in terms of just the feeling the film evokes. I don't believe I have to necessarily make something autobiographical. It was more about trying to say something about being a woman in this particular type of situation. It's not something that happened to me. But then it became very lived in, in terms of the extremely long and thorough research process, that started with a sentiment and a need to communicate something about violence.
But, was there any specific incident or news that you read which inspired the film?
I wanted to make a film about violence against women in India. I have done a lot of work with the NGOs. I was working in small towns in North India and seeing such horrible things daily. In a documentary, you can't show things that are too horrible. So, that's why after the Delhi gang rape case, when I saw this photograph of the protesters, this line of police officers, and this one policewoman, she was so interesting to me.
Who is this? What is she feeling? She's got this uniform, which has so much authority, especially in India, and yet the feeling of being powerless. It’s then that I got interested. I thought here’s a story. I'm a documentary maker, not a genre filmmaker, so I was wondering how to do it. How do I make that mine? It then became all about that.
Shahana Goswami told me that she likes the idea of documentary filmmakers getting into fiction, and the kind of realism that can then come to the fiction feature. One can see that in the way you have recreated specific places, used certain spaces, created a universe…
The universe is so important. Initially, I was worried about the length but all the first responses to the first cut of Santosh, which was long, were about never having seen India quite like that before. It was about a type of place, sort of slightly ugly, semi-rural. These are my favourite places in India. And then there was the fact of real people in those spaces. The cobbler is the real cobbler. You can't get an extra doing that. It doesn't work. To have all those real people, in the spaces that are their spaces, makes me feel safe in making fiction.
Where did you shoot it in India?
It was shot in and around Lucknow.
Did you spend a lot of time with the cops to get that universe right? Was it easy to gain access? How was it to spend time with them?
It was fantastic. I'm a documentary maker. So, I'm missing the cops here in Cannes. They should have been watching the film here with me. I also worked for a long time with police anthropologists. I spent enough time and had so many conversations that I feel that I can stand behind what I'm saying about the police in this film. For me, living outside India, yet making films about India is my way to have a deep relationship with my country.
There is a definite progression to your lead character—loss of innocence, a bit of a power trip yet being circumscribed by the hierarchy and patriarchy…
It is also about Santosh accepting the bargain. You get this and I’ll take that in return. It’s not shocking. This is how India functions for me. Let's negotiate around this. That's why, for me, Santosh is never fully innocent when she joins the police. The film is about this deep, dark theatre of policing. Sharma (Sunita Rajwar) talks about it in the car. That's why I have used Bollywood music. There is a theatricality to policing, the roles being played, the pressure being put.
You are subversive—about caste, gender, religion—without making a song and dance about it…
It's just my sensibility. Sometimes it's a bit too subtle. But, I do have a lot of faith in audiences. If you give a little bit and leave space for the audience, you don't need to shout about it. And it's also a fact that these things are very casually there in society, in little conversations.
It's not always like a big drama. It's the little things that are done—having a separate glass for the maid. People watching the film can understand that they are also a little implicated in these issues.
The sisterhood of the two cops… What made you pick Shahana and Sunita to bring it to life?
I think it's a bit more complicated than sisterhood between them. Sisterhood is complicated. The chemistry between them was very important. It was also about each one of them in their own right. Shahana was not the innocent girl next door, exactly. That’s why she was interesting to me. That’s how I always saw Santosh.
Someone who was already a bit smart. She's a little hungry. The hunger for status that she had lost as a widow. As for Sharma, we have this matriarchal figure in film and TV, the female Don. I didn't want that. Sunita was very different. She brought out the human side of Sharma.
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