Writer and Director: Sandhya Suri
Police brutality and corruption seem to be the same the world over, fit someone suitable up for an unsolved crime and then enforce that using violence and even torture to extract a confession. British-funded Santosh set in the Indian police force is a police brutality story but it focuses on the incremental brutalisation of a new female recruit and the attempts to make the women’s service as well respected as their male equivalents by matching their tactics. This hugely accomplished first feature by Sandhya Suri is an early London Film Festival highlight.
When her policeman husband dies in service, widow Santosh Saini is rejected by her in-laws but offered the chance to inherit a version of his job in the women’s force along with a pension. Needing the wage, the new recruit is quickly drawn into female abuse cases and is challenged by the horrific rape and murder of an underage girl found in a well in a labouring village. Following the lead of her admirable superior Geeta Sharma, Santosh must demonstrate her worth when a suspect is identified.
Suri’s remarkable debut is a film that explores extremes set in a community where even the police appear lawless and where the citizens they protect are dismissed, the concerns of the poor not worth the time of local officers. Suri introduces violence into the film early on when a young man refuses to marry a girl her had fooled around with and is abused by her with the collusion of the police, an act witnessed by Santosh who slowly comes to understand what is expected of her. That exploration of what a woman officer, and Santosh in particular, might be capable of is central to the developing storyline and both intellectually and instinctually officer Santosh constantly appears to surprise herself along with the viewer.
The connection comes from Suri’s deeply compassionate heroine who, like all everyman characters, just wants to do a good job and the right thing, typified by her concerned response for the women she encounters and for the poor communities she tries to help. But it is the complex relationship with her new boss that dominates the screen, and the line Suri treads between making her an admirable female role model trying to retain her power in a man’s world, and an inappropriate proximity to the younger woman, knowing the authority she has to mould Santosh into the effective investigator and enforcer she will need to be to thrive.
As Santosh, Shahana Goswami effortlessly carries the movie, a sympathetic point of view for the audience who learns about self-reliance following her husband’s death. Ever watchful of what is around her, Goswami shows that assimilation of knowledge and expectation with a catch of conscience keeps even the character guessing what she might do next. Her relationship with Sunita Rajwar’s Sharma is full of layers as admiration mixes with shock and disgust, so while Sharma proves a faithful mentor she is also an authority figure equally capable of acting without controls.
Running at more than 2 hours, Suri paces Santosh really well, providing just enough drive through the investigation process and the protagonist’s evolution to prevent any lapses in momentum, while broadening out the film’s commentary to look at widespread police corruption and violence as well as the illiterate labourer villages poorly serviced by justice. A fine introduction to a filmmaker with a documentary eye and a big future in the industry.
Santosh is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2024.
