Seldom it is that a movie comes as a game changer in the socio-political contexts; where the role of cinema is to question something innate, deep, and inseparable of the complex and complicated topic of "human nature". Sanduk (2025) presents a complicated picture by all means and does justice to these complex debates. Rather than rooted in India's post-1990 rotten romantic worldview, it puts a blurred line between the protagonist and antagonist. There is no hero in this movie, least to say, there is nothing heroic. Yet, lack of a hero doesn't make a tragedy any less valuable. The Greeks and the Romans would be of this opinion at least. The film's plot is not uniform. In most cases, this would be a criticism; however, in the case of Sanduk, it is a compliment. The uniform plots of tragedy do not absorb the viewers, for seldomly, we experience the tragedy of life as one event. Tragedy is the mother of comedy, and through its gaps and lack of uniformity, Sanduk lets the comic slip out of tragic's fist like sand slips out of a fist. Drizzled with unanticipated entries, Sanduk isn't synthetic to comedy or tragedy. It nurtures both of them. I believe that actors (Sharib Hashmi and Kumud Mishra in particular) do a brilliant job in bringing the plot forth rather than letting their acting dictate the plot. It is a movie which will give the viewers a pleasure of watching a drama, a tragic-comic drama, on the screens of their devices, bringing theatre and theatrical to them. This movie is outstanding not only for the novice approach but also for the bravery and perseverance of its director and writer to not let the plot slip out to being bleak or boring at any point. I believe I can make a safe case with the same words for both editors and set designers. The intricate details are not empty - as they often tend to be in Indian cinema - rather, they speak something symbolically. To those who are familiar with Italian and Iranian cinema, this movie will be out of place from Indian context. It could very well have been made in Iran or Italy. It's openness, lack of authority of figures, their falliability, and their multitude expressions - sometime as hysteria, other times as greed - let one mumble slowly the Aristotlean/Marxian ethos of "first as tragedy, then as a farce." At the end, I'd say that it's a wonderful movie, a complete package, and finally, a work of art that has been produced that we needed, perhaps not deserved.
