There is a scene in 'Soni' where a helpless woman, pleads the woman police officer, to let go of her husband who has been unfairly jailed on rape charges. She swears on her daughter, standing next to her, looking as helpless. The police officer, Kalpana, eventually gives in and asks her junior that the husband be released. The pleading woman is not the central character of this deeply unsettling and engaging film 'Soni' and yet in that brief moment, you cannot help sympathize with her. Like many other women living in Delhi, she has been on the receiving end of a hugely patriarchal set-up that favors the powerful and hurts the powerless in varying degrees.
The central characters are actually played by two other women - 'Soni' (in the title role), as a junior police officer and Kalpana as her boss, an IPS officer, both with different personalities, background. Kalpana lives in a posh house with her husband who is also a police officer (but at a much more senior rank than hers), is calm, strategic and goes by the book. Soni is the exact opposite - short-tempered, aggressive and lives in a modest DDA apartment. And yet, they are united by their anguish and frustration with a system that always works against them. Just like the pleading woman, they struggle to overcome the everyday misogyny, the casual sexism, not just at work but also in their personal lives. At first glance, it might seem that Kalpana's privilege of being surrounded by her more liberal family members and friends probably exempts her from any of these problems. And yet, she is burdened with the expectations to fulfill her 'maternal responsibility' in her personal life on one hand and to be more tough, hard on her juniors in her professional life, almost implying that she needs to act more like a man to succeed in her job. Unlike most police officers, men or women, depicted in mainstream films, Kalpana and Soni are driven not by a sense of adventurism or fun but more by their frustration at having to deal with the men who are either pure sexist or are just pure needy. Despite her frustrations, Soni looks up to her boss, perhaps one of the only few whose validation really matters to her. And despite the hierarchal boundaries, the two ladies share a special bond that is really heartwarming. Kalpana may not like Soni's style but she identifies with her anguish, perhaps, relating to her own. The actresses playing them are exceptionally natural - both Geetika Vidya Ohlyan as Soni and Saloni Batra as Kalpana are brilliant.
There is no dialogue-baazi in this deliberately paced slice of life drama. From the audio on the radio playing in the background, one gets a sense of the time the film is set in. There are talks on segregating public transport for men and women. The backdrop is the Delhi during the winters. For someone who grew up in Delhi, the fogginess was tangible and the misogyny directed at these women, not just Soni and Kalpana but all the other women, felt real. As the end credits roll against the haunting score by Andrea Penso, one knows that there will not be an easy resolution to their challenges anytime soon but hopes that the beautiful sisterhood shared by these women, cutting across class boundaries, never ends. I strongly recommend Soni. It is the best Hindi film I have seen in years!
The central characters are actually played by two other women - 'Soni' (in the title role), as a junior police officer and Kalpana as her boss, an IPS officer, both with different personalities, background. Kalpana lives in a posh house with her husband who is also a police officer (but at a much more senior rank than hers), is calm, strategic and goes by the book. Soni is the exact opposite - short-tempered, aggressive and lives in a modest DDA apartment. And yet, they are united by their anguish and frustration with a system that always works against them. Just like the pleading woman, they struggle to overcome the everyday misogyny, the casual sexism, not just at work but also in their personal lives. At first glance, it might seem that Kalpana's privilege of being surrounded by her more liberal family members and friends probably exempts her from any of these problems. And yet, she is burdened with the expectations to fulfill her 'maternal responsibility' in her personal life on one hand and to be more tough, hard on her juniors in her professional life, almost implying that she needs to act more like a man to succeed in her job. Unlike most police officers, men or women, depicted in mainstream films, Kalpana and Soni are driven not by a sense of adventurism or fun but more by their frustration at having to deal with the men who are either pure sexist or are just pure needy. Despite her frustrations, Soni looks up to her boss, perhaps one of the only few whose validation really matters to her. And despite the hierarchal boundaries, the two ladies share a special bond that is really heartwarming. Kalpana may not like Soni's style but she identifies with her anguish, perhaps, relating to her own. The actresses playing them are exceptionally natural - both Geetika Vidya Ohlyan as Soni and Saloni Batra as Kalpana are brilliant.
There is no dialogue-baazi in this deliberately paced slice of life drama. From the audio on the radio playing in the background, one gets a sense of the time the film is set in. There are talks on segregating public transport for men and women. The backdrop is the Delhi during the winters. For someone who grew up in Delhi, the fogginess was tangible and the misogyny directed at these women, not just Soni and Kalpana but all the other women, felt real. As the end credits roll against the haunting score by Andrea Penso, one knows that there will not be an easy resolution to their challenges anytime soon but hopes that the beautiful sisterhood shared by these women, cutting across class boundaries, never ends. I strongly recommend Soni. It is the best Hindi film I have seen in years!
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