It’s been ages since I’d last seen a Bollywood film, so I was quite excited when Sonya asked if we all wanted to go catch one. Archana bought the tickets, and off we went to Bombay Talkies to watch Peepli Live.

I was told, well in advance, to leave my preconceptions of Bollywood behind. I didn’t want to spoil the surprise, so I asked people not to tell me what the film was about. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was in for a treat.

Released on the 13th of August (thank you, Wikipedia), Peepli Live is, by all accounts, an extraordinary film. Shot in an almost painfully hyperrealist fashion (handheld camerawork everywhere, not a dolly or truck in sight), the film at first glance seems to be a serious, almost documentary look at the lives of the rural poor in India. The main protagonists, are Bhudia and Natha, a pair of brothers whose family has farmed the land for generations, but who find themselves at risk of losing their farm for failing to repay a government loan. After a while, the vein of dark humour running through the narrative becomes visible, especially since the solution to the problem of the brothers is for one of them to commit suicide. I’ll stop there, because continuing would spoil the story.

It turns out that Peepli Live is deft bit of satire, with extraordinarily straight-faced storytelling that hides the barbs and spears that it lobs at different parts of Indian society, including the media and the government, using the issue of farmer suicides as the main focus.

(That part’s not a joke, by the way. The stunning number of Indian farmers have committed suicide, a phenomena that goes back to the 1990s according to the Wikipedia entry.)

The whole film is laced with sly, back-handed humour, some of it very black indeed, that counterpoints against moments of great poignancy and empathy. I have to admire the craftsmanship with which the film manages to combine the two, showing off the struggles and extreme poverty of the farmers, and then mocks the politicians and media pundits who are able to ignore the important issues in favour of whatever brings them the most benefit. There are some really hilarious moments in the film, too, and some really moving ones.

It doesn’t have any song-and-dance numbers (okay, maybe one song number) and frankly, is very short, running for only 104 minutes (short for a Bollywood movie, that is). Worth every minute, I think, and the film is edited so that there’s no excess, and every single frame adds something to the overall story. I’d recommend it to anyone, with perhaps a warning that the pace at the beginning is deceptively slow. Your patience will be amply rewarded.

I’m keen to watch more Bollywood films. I have asked that the next one we go to should be an all-singing-all-dancing spectacular, and I’ve been assured that there are plenty of those, too. I can’t wait for the next time that Rice goes to the movies.