Writer-director Aditya Kripalani made some news with his TIKLI AND LAXMI BOMB in 2018 that was based on his own book with the same title. The novel turned into a film presented a fresh idea of the Mumbai women sex workers forming their own cooperation kicking out the men-pimps and it won good appreciation for its thought put forward in the festival circuits. However the film was actually a raw as well as quite average attempt in terms of presentation and technique to be honest.
The writer-director returns with TOTTA PATAAKA ITEM MAAL, as a different version of the same women-oriented subject in which he tries to be visibly much more brutal presenting a torture of a man resulting in an unexpected consequence. Based in Delhi-NCR, the story focuses on a group of women who decide to abduct a man, who harassed them. They lock him up at a deserted place for a few days, torture him and teach him a lesson of his life.
Unfortunately, this time the presentation misses that raw feel or innocence witnessed in the write-director’s first venture. Shot mostly at night, with natural lighting (thankfully not getting too dark on screen), the narration never moves out of a set tone and hence remains monotonous throughout losing the desired impact. The ladies give their best expressing themselves as the victims who decide to revolt against the men, but the film still somehow remains much less than what it could have been.
May be, because at the end it simply turns out to be a routine revenge drama, trying to make a strong social statement in an otherwise technically feeble film. Moreover, unlike his first attempt, the director also comes up with a repetitive idea which was earlier also presented in a much better manner in ZAKHMI AURAT released three decades back in 1988. In that much talked about revenge drama too, the group of ladies decides to abduct the rapists but then they castrate them instead of simply killing with a gun. To be fair with the original creators, even ZAKHMI AURAT was an unofficial rip-off, taking its entire content from an English film THE LADIES CLUB (1986).
On a different note, thinking about these films and the time gap in between, it’s really sad and tragic to accept that nothing has actually changed and it has perhaps become even worse than what it used to be three decades back in the 80s. Sadly, Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal once again reminds us about the eye-opener social truth that we still haven’t done anything significant to stop such crimes happening in our society even in the new millennium and the women still feel at risk and unsecure living in a man’s world.
Having said that, TOTAA PATAAKA ITEM MAAL certainly is an uncomfortable yet important watch, but at the same time is also a disappointment in terms of cinema coming from the writer-director of TIKLI AND LAXMI BOMB, which at least had a fresh and novel idea to praise.
For friends wondering what the title is all about, it actually is the sum of four derogatory words used to address girls in the local lingo of the northern and also other regions of the country.
Rating : 2 / 5
Written & Directed by Aditya Kripalani
Starring: Chitrangada Chakraborty, Ahmareen Anjum, Sonal Joshi, Kritika Pande, Shalini Vatsa and Vinay Sharma.
(Note : At the time of posting this review, the film could be seen at Netflix.)
