Santosh

What an honor to be the first to write the review here!

I just saw this movie at the Sarajevo Film Festival, and I was immersed in it from the 1st moment. It's huge - bravo Sandhya Suri, bravo all the cast! What a realistic and technically flawless movie.

Very complex system (and the situation of misogyny) in India is neither easy to understand nor describe - Sandhya Suri did it very well. She couldn't let go the shocking events and painfully nonsensical injustices felt very deeply and obviously researched thoroughly - and she managed to portray it all here!

Thank you for this movie, on behalf of all the oppressed.

Big love and respect!

"There are two kinds of untouchables; those you don't want to touch, and those who can't be touched."

When a police officer is killed, his wife - Santosh - is trained to take his place. It is merely a ceremonial act in a police station in rural Northern India that is overwhelmingly male and traditional. Then a girl is raped, tortured, and her body dumped in a public square. The brazen crime isn't even investigated. Since the girl is from a poor family who can't read, they are ignored. It is then that something inside Santosh is triggered. Her task seems far from impossible, and yet public pressure builds and doors open that she never expected.

"The girl wore jeans and baited him."

The underground of India is revealed in this tense, observant, heart twisting, and powerful film. There is a glimpse of the justice system that prioritizes convictions by any means and ignores the real victims and perps. The film first surfaced at Cannes, and I saw it with director Sandhya Suri at the Toronto International Film Festival. It is all very moving. The film's spectacular imagery stays with me; the earrings of the dead girl, her face in the mirror, a lovely couple together, a girl selling biscuits, and a passing train.

There are 2 type of untouchables: one no one wants to touch. Second no one can touch them.

Above dialogue aptly shows the indian society structure or we can say the power structure of our country. There is no justice for the poor.

Acting wise , both lead actresses are damn good. I wouldve loved to see them in a web series together.

Plot was good, but the main important point of film is its tone. It no where uses too much of filmy tropes, remains simple, and tries to show more of raw and real scenes from such stories.

After seeing such films i feel, we are sill very behind. Power is still with few people while rest just survive and live somehow. They dont expect anything from police or from government. No one wants them except at the time of elections.

While it's narrative and structure does feel a bit thin, no doubt Sandhya Suri has an ambitious take on the corruption of Indian's police system, the caste system and the political issues surrounding in Indian.

Shot throughly well and provided with good production design, the direction maintains a good sense of atmosphere on approaching the narrative and the characters surrounding the environment. Alongside with a strong performance from Shaman Goswami. As a cop movie, the narrative does offer some interesting aspects but it does weaken as some of the average cliche approaches and the weak character developments don't really hold a very strong grasp.

Since the movie isn't a typical Bollywood story and made internationally, some of the approaches felt a bit too dense and biased that doesn't detract certain serious moments as the filmmaker would have wanted. But still, despite it's flaws, I found myself appreciating the aspects of the movie and it being a solid cop drama.

Santosh (2024) : Movie Review -

Let's take a moment to recall all the best cop films ever made in the Hindi language. Zanjeer, Sarfarosh, Singham, and Article 15-does the list end here? Well, you can add your other favorites too, but believe me when I say this from the depths of my heart: Santosh surpasses all those films. Interestingly, it's a lady cop movie, and most of those films people mention as the best cop movies feature male leads. Another interesting fact is that it is not an outright Bollywood movie but an international co-production involving the United Kingdom, India, Germany, and France. This film addresses corruption and the failures of the police system while also highlighting the severe impact of casteism and Dalit issues. I don't think any Hindi movie has ever been this diverse in the cop-drama genre, making it the best cop film ever made in our language.

Santosh is usually a male name in our society, but it is sometimes used for females too. This film features a leading lady named Santosh (Shahana Goswami), who takes on her late husband's role as a police constable after he is murdered by an unknown group while on duty. According to the rules, the widow gets the job, and Santosh is initially content with her position, only to witness the darker side of police duty. Shortly after trying to adapt to the police system and accepting her first bribe, she is tasked with finding the killer of a teenage girl who has been brutally raped, murdered, and then thrown into a well. She works under Senior Officer Geeta Sharma (Sunita Rajwar), learning all methods of police work, and they manage to capture the perpetrator they have been pursuing. What happens next must remain a surprise, so it stuns you when you watch the film.

Sandhya Suri, as a writer, deserves a huge round of applause for discovering new ideas in the cop drama genre. The Santosh movie not only addresses corruption and the fragmented systems within the police department but also highlights social and sensitive issues like casteism, religious hatred, Dalit issues, honor killings, and human conscience. You might recognize this idea of human conscience from the Hollywood classic "The Oxbow Incident" (1943)-one of the earliest films to explore the conflict between human guilt and conscience, showcasing the relentless torment one can face after committing a crime-or you can find similar themes in Jolly LLB 2 or a few Malayalam classics. Santosh extends that concept, creating a beautiful compilation of multiple hard-hitting themes, knowing that even a single theme can make for a great movie. Now imagine watching 4-5 different themes blended together in a highly artistic film with virtually no flaws. Isn't it just wonderful? Santosh achieved this-it's unbelievable, but Santosh did it! There are at least a dozen scenes that warrant discussion for their artistic references and cinematic nuances, but sadly, I can't spoil them here for your own good. People are typically satisfied nowadays with just one or two aesthetically pleasing scenes in any movie, yet here comes Santosh, which doubles or triples the bonanza! Hats off to the greatest scripts and screenplays ever written in this genre. Sandhya ma'am, I salute you and your brilliant work!

Shahana Goswami has truly demonstrated what acting means to all Hindi actresses. This is the best performance by any actress in 2024, and that too by a wide margin. Goswami alone has outshined the top three performances of the year in Bollywood. Sunita Rajwar is simply OUTSTANDING! I can hardly believe what I just witnessed. Sunita ma'am, what a remarkable actress you are. These Bollywood and TV serial directors have done a tremendous injustice to you and your acting finesse by assigning you mediocre roles over the years. You deserve to work in Hollywood or foreign cinema, given the way you have performed in Santosh. Not a single frame lacked substance from her. Can you believe it? I couldn't, even while witnessing it. Since this is a hard-hitting and very realistic film, the supporting cast needed to be natural, and what fine support they all provided. A big thank you to Sanjay Bishnoi, Kushal Dubey, Nawal Shukla, Pratibha Awasthi, and others, for creating a superb acting unit as a whole.

Santosh is undoubtedly one of the best films of the year, considering the technical aspects. The cinematography and editing both deserve to be nominated in every award show and should most probably win them all. The sound design (Oh, those FM and songs in the background) and the BGM are just fabulous, and the film has great production design despite a low budget. Actually, that was necessary here since the film had to look real, and for that, the real locations and those camera angles helped it become a cinematic classic in technical aspects. Dear Sandhya Suri, where are your feet? I want to touch them, finally quenching my thirst for a CLASSIC HINDI MOVIE after years. Your vision, storytelling, presentation, and understanding of real cinema exceed expectations. You have left me speechless with at least 15 scenes in Santosh, and I don't even remember the last time something like this happened to me after watching around 500 movies in a year. Santosh and those scenes will forever be in my memory whenever I think about any female-led film or a cop movie, and I don't think anything can come close to this masterwork. I usually don't like it when a movie defames our police department for the sake of fictional masala entertainers, but Suri's realistic form of art made me realize how others have failed to understand how to use it in cinema. Santosh is truly a CINEMATIC GEM and MUST be on your MUST-SEE list right this minute.

RATING - 8/10*

By - #samthebestest.