Mandi

Mandi narrates the story of a brothel, situated in the heart of a city, an area that some politicians want for its prime locality. It is a satirical comedy on politics and prostitution.

There is no doubt that it's one of the most entertaining films from The Great Shyam Benegal. I've never seen so many great actors in a single film before and everyone stood out beautifully. This film is another example of Shabana Azmi's utter brilliance. I think it's A Must Watch film with pure entertainment.

Available on Amazon Prime Video & JioCinema.

© MandalBros.

Shyam Benegal, one of the finest filmmakers, tells the whimsical story of a group of prostitutes struggling against the 'city' who wants to have them thrown out in order to replace their brothel with development projects. 'Mandi' is a splendid comedy comedy. The humour is subtle and dry which is a refreshing change from the usual slapstick witnessed so often in Indian 'masala' films. Plus, they had me laughing out loud. While the film reflects the hypocrisy of society, it doesn't preach to anyone in particular. All the characters, even those with very limited screen time, are interesting. 'Mandi' mainly centres around Rukmini, the madam of the brothel (played by a spellbinding Shabana Azmi), and her 'apprentice' Zeenat (Smita Patil in another riveting performance). The other colourful characters include Tungrus (Rukmini's royal servant - played by a terrific Naseeruddin Shah), the hypocritical superficial social worker from the women's association and her assistant (a hilarious Pankaj Kapur), a horny photographer (a superb Om Puri), a Darvish (the one and only Amrish Puri), a businessman (a great Kulbhushan Kharbanda), a sympathetic businessman with a secret (the dependable Saeed Jaffrey), a deaf novice (a brilliant Sreela Majumdar), a mentally underdeveloped bride-to-be (Ratna Pathak) and many more. The union of all these characters creates the unique story that is 'Mandi'. The writing and dialogues are cleverly done. Given the long running time, 'Mandi' remains entertaining and thought-provoking from start to finish. There's nothing too complex about it. It's a simplistic story and, like with any Benegal film, a worthy cinematic experience except that this time you'll be laughing more than you'd expect.

My Rating : 6/10

'Mandi' is great for spotting all of the amazing side-actors and character actors as there's quite a few of them however the movie is rather average - it's meant to be a black comedy but there's not much of humour going on and neither is the storyline as exciting - aside from the great assembly of actors it's got a dull arc and frankly I was not entertained in the least.

An average film with great actors - good first-half - nothing however makes it more than a one-time watch.

My main criticism is that Shabana Azmi, who's otherwise very, very good, is at least 15 years too young for the part of a middle aged madam. She looks barely older than Smita Patil, who's supposed to be her surrogate daughter.

In fact, for me, Shabana is easily the most alluring women in the movie - she could obviously do better by selling herself! Anyone agree?

A minor criticism is that Nasruddin Shah, who goes barefoot throughout, even on the roughest ground, is obviously accustomed to wearing shoes - I winced in sympathy with every step he took. BTW, can someone tell me if he's a Parsee. I think he looks like one.

I keep getting told that my comment doesn't run to ten lines. Does it now?

What worked:

• ensemble cast; the movie has one of the finest actors of the industry in their early years of their best career. It's a pleasure to see all these actors portray their roles for a challenging and daring topic of the time. It's commendable direction by Shyam Benegal and the team to bring together a very important movie. It's engaging, entertaining and brutally honest movie.

What did not work:

• sound mixing and editing; one issue that was consistent with the movie is the sound quality. As a result, the voice and pitch of the characters especially the females in their directive voice sound painfully bad. It sounded like it was more of a shout than a dialogue delivery.
• cast; one of the biggest issue is the lead character Shabana Azmi's portrayal. No doubt she acted well but her role as per the story is of a at least middle age woman which doesn't fit her verbal and nonverbal attributes. If only the role was given to someone older, it would have been more convincing.

Final verdict: recommended