With you. For you. Can't always...

Because he kept mentioning he wasnt into arthouse films during the course of a fairly long interview once I asked former Delhiite superstar Shah Rukh Khan exactly what he meant by an arthouse film anyway The sort where the sound of the bee buzzing or the traffic outside drowns out people talking in a room he said Well thats one way of putting it all rightWhat does one make of a film that seeps so much into your system though that soon as you switch it off your awareness of everyday sounds in your own houserattling cutlery in the kitchen water flowing in the bathroom sinkseem instantly heightened because the movie itself simply hasnt left your mind yetThats exactly how I felt right after watching Ivan Ayrs assuredly quiet film Soni with ambience sound for a background score captured to near perfection by sound designer Sylvain Bellemare and stunningly photographed by David Bolen almost always in midshot sometimes long backshot sideways the lights alternatively dimming and brightening up much like it would before the naked eye given natural light as the cameras main sourceAs treatments go this might be the polar opposite of how you expect a policecrime drama to pan out since they are inevitably plotdriven gruesomely violent on occasion Or are at least high on drama even when slightly internal being chiefly centered on the travails of the main character Say like Govind Nihalanis Om Puri starrer Ardh Satya 1983 or its possible inspiration Sidney Lumets Serpico 1973 fronted by Al Pacinoto give you two finest examplesAnd yet with beats mimicking a beatcops life the lens focused on the two female leadsan IPS officer Saloni Batra her statepolice subordinate Geetika Vidya Ohlyan outstanding firsttimers bothwith every scene revealing more and more about the characters dilemmas rather than merely taking a story forward Soni brings to fore the Delhi underbelly or rather the National Capital Region NCR like few films have done beforeFirstly the filmmakers strip the two characters of every movie clicheacute that you automatically anticipate in a cop drama The senior is supremely selfrestrained the junior while brave brash and indeed frustrated seems wholly real in her reflexive responses Neither is seething with anger against the systemboth being acutely aware of its natural limitsAnd God knows Delhi would be a hard place to police Come to think of it the Delhi Police itselfwith its generous motto With you for you alwaysfaces a turf war with the local state government since unlike all other forces it falls directly under the Central Government supervised by the Home Minister who in turns reports to the Prime Minister and by extension the figurehead the President of India Between the President and the ministerial clerk all of whom reside in the nations capital each with their own concentric circles of favour giversseekers in a largely rentierentitlement economy possibly leaves the police with hardly any elbow room to navigate even petty crimes let alone effectively curb them without restrictionThis explains the existential question of the NCR by now a popular joke Do you know who my father is Ive seen even my journalist friends get away with a lot with the police in Delhi flashing their press cards something I know from experience has the reverse effect in Mumbai Now imagine being a female cop in such a scenario where even colleagues cant decide whether to call you sir or madam Loaded with compassion Soni the movie and its eponymous character helps you do just thatThe film opens with a lone woman on a bicycle being chased down by a loafer in the dead of the night on an empty street She grabs the guy instead being an undercover cop herself with enforcements waiting round the corner As opening scenes for cop films go although absolutely unrelated it ranks right up there with the mobilevan interiorsequence in Vishal Bharadwajs Maqbool 2003Admittedly inspired by the infamous gangrape and murder of a 23yearold woman popularly known as the Nirbhaya incident 2012 Ayrs calmly dark gloomy astoundingly realistic police drama offers greater insights into what it is to be a woman in public even if youre a cop in Delhi right down to how you should bepreferably wearing sindoor or shirtpant western wear to avoid inevitable sexual harassmentIve seen it twice already It takes a while getting into but eventually leaves you feeling in equal measure empathetic and eerily quiet in the head This is I reckon the most accomplished Indian directorial debut since Chaitanya Tamhanes Court 2015 which incidentally also premiered in the same section Horizons at the Venice International Film Festival Soni dropped on Netflix recently Just so you catch it tonight if you havent alreadyMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city 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