In the film's second act, Geetha, having recently lost custody of her daughter, sneaks into the local secondary school bearing sweets on the occasion of her child’s birthday. Finding her in violation of the custody agreement, her ex-husband, the child’s father, blatantly and physically confronts Geetha while a herd of student onlookers gather around. The ex-husband makes no attempt to be discrete in handling the situation, nor does Geetha seek a discrete escape when she spots the man from afar. It is perhaps this disregard for keeping a low profile that not only informs the characters in this scene but also Fazil Razak’s overall presentation of this film about one woman’s relentless struggle to reconcile with almost all occurrences in her guilt-stricken life.
Geetha’s being, as we find, is beset with a silent bearing of tragedy, guilt, and utter frenzy from the very beginning where we see her in the middle of a bank robbery hostage situation, the robber picking Geetha’s daughter as the human shield. From here on in, she loses custody of her daughter in a messy divorce case, is beaten around by her ex-husband, obscurely the unfortunate passing of a child, battles bouts of depression, is diagnosed with a brain tumour, and when she finds out that inmates are granted governmental medical treatment, in the hopes of getting arrested, she hatches a plot to pawn off a stolen gold chain, which eventually backfires. There is no respite, moments of levity are ever so fleeting. Despite her constant worries, Geetha is surrounded by a core group of friends and neighbours who act as her interim family, people who truly care about her, but through happenstance bear the brunt of some tragedy by mere association with her. It’s as if Geetha possesses the opposite of the “Mida’s Touch”, even the gold chain that she steals turns out to be a fake. It feels like as much of a tight inescapable circle of people as a crowded bus, an image the
film opens with. Her paths cross with everyone whom she affects and whom she’s affected by to an extent where there is some sense that her being isn’t just beset with hardships but is perhaps even violently cursed with it.
Razak presents this narrative very matter-of-factly, the images sort of speak for themselves, devoid of any impressionism. In a way, one is compelled to perpetually confront Geetha’s suffocating guilt. We too are not allowed a moment of respite. Razak adopts a digressive attitude, swiftly moving on from one occurrence to another. Ruminating on these changing tides in Geetha’s life, we oftentimes don’t revisit moments that are casually mentioned. We learn that Geetha attempted to kill her child, Neethu, from a previous marriage, while presumably suffering from bouts of mental illness. Now as a twenty-something, Neethu plays her role as the dutiful daughter regardless of a traumatizing childhood perpetrated by her mother. The reasons for Geetha’s transgressions against her first daughter are never brought up, nor do we get any more insight into her previous marriage, all we know is that it ended. I suspect this withholding of backstory and swift movement from one unfortunate beat to another ties Geetha as a character to an encumbered loop of deep misery and guilt, deliverance from which she attains by stretching her dignity to radical extremes.
Beena R Chandran’s performance as Geetha makes the film whole. She’s able to hold Geetha together expressing her grace in the face of tempestuous ordeals, specifically evidenced in the scene after the custody battle where she waves her daughter goodbye. A gesture held with such poise indicates that Geetha, although troubled, will find a way to get by. Performance here is inextricable from the meaning of the image. It’s the classic case where screen presence becomes the primary makeup of a film's mise-en-scène.
In the end, what comes of Geetha’s woes and diagnosis, we never know. Her fate is kept from us much like her past. For the moments in time that we spend with her, we may sculpt an image of her person, perhaps even speculate her motivations, yet what unlucky fate has befallen her will forever remain an enigma. In this study of a seemingly fallen woman, there are no real culprits, no one to blame. What remains may be even more haunting than any antagonist: The burden destiny has in
store for some of us.
- Vanij Choksi, Young Critic
