Plots(1)
A government scheme sees newly widowed Santosh inherit her husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of Northern India. When a low-caste girl is found raped and murdered, she is pulled into the investigation under the wing of charismatic feminist inspector Sharma. (Cannes Film Festival)
Reviews (2)
An evocative and very effective criticism of the thoroughly rotten and utterly incompetent Indian police, seen from the perspective of a rookie cop who comes to her new profession only by chance when she inherits it from her deceased husband. From the very beginning, the protagonist encounters unprofessionalism, bribery, absurd practices and discrimination against people from lower castes, but her real disillusionment with the performance of the police force comes only when she gets to the case of the rape and murder of an underage girl. A weakness of the plot is that the subsequent investigation relies heavily on fortunate (and unfortunate) coincidences. Santosh story about a woman whose loss of ideals and gradual awakening force her to wage a struggle to preserve her own moral code, though she too has been guilty of misconduct. The torture scene, from which more is heard than seen, will certainly remain in the viewer’s mind, but the atypical working relationship between the protagonist and her experienced superior and the realistic depiction of the poor Indian villages in which the film is set are also engaging.
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Since I had the opportunity to spend some time in India, I always like to watch Indian productions, or rather the ones that show the real and everyday life of the people of this huge country full of contrasts. I don’t mean exactly Bollywood 😊 Here we follow the story of Constable Santosh, who is new to the police force, and under the guidance of the experienced Inspector Sharma, they investigate the murder of a young girl from the lowest caste. I think criminal investigation in India is extremely remarkable and fascinating, but in this film it's rather skimmed over – I would definitely recommend the very authentic and successful Indian series Delhi Crime for a better idea. Their investigative techniques, procedures, the level of corruption, and the kind of background they have, or rather don't have, it boggles my mind that they are able to successfully conclude an investigation. But Santosh is definitely not just an ordinary detective story. It opens up a lot of deeper themes that make you think, so you don't leave the cinema completely clear-headed. [Festival de Cannes 2024]
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