Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Films have been a medium of entertainment for most of the Indian audience, keeping that in mind most of the filmmakers go beyond the reality to produce movies that are mostly out of the real world. The stories presented with such an aim are mostly seen in the mainstream cinema and on the parallel lines to this field is the artistic cinema which highlights the stories which are relatable and relevant. Such films prove that this medium if used in a proper way, can act as a powerful tool in voicing out true opinions.

The same goes for the 2017 film Newton directed by Amit Masurkar which stars Rajkummar Rao and Pankaj Tripathi representing two different poles of the society with different ideologies but the similarity between these two is that they are somehow suppressed by the government in an indirect manner. Rao plays a polling officer who has been assigned on the election duty in the tribal village of Chhattisgarh where extreme Maoists/Naxals are active on an armed revolution. That’s the setting where the story of Newton begins, changes, and concludes not in a typical format but getting close to reality.

A still from Newton

The simple premise of the film goes as the protagonist aims at conduction fair elections in an underdeveloped region, the conflict is the armed forces assembled by the government and the so-called extremists who are revolting against the government in power. The film uses a linear form of storytelling which makes it look more of a real thing. The clash of ideologies from the same ground explains a lot about the flawed system. There’s a shot in the film where the people are showing the voting mark on the finger to the media persons, this scene reminded me of the news segment every election.

Watching these segments on our television sets we feel proud that despite being a flawed system, we successfully conduct fair and free elections all across the nation which makes us feel proud of the democracy but in the film, this shot seems depressing as we are made aware of the reality behind these votes.

Coming to the conclusion, the film’s not a pro-hero story wherein the midst of all the hardships and struggles the protagonist wins over everything. Here, nothing changes in terms of the story the character lives their lives as earlier, nothing more has changed which explains that the story needs no conclusion if the intention has reached the audience.

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