Movie Review: Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola

A cranky capitalist with a drinking problem, his craggy Man Friday with a deadpan sense of humour and the former's feisty daughter who is fond of stirring up the pot are the eponymous figures in Vishal Bhardwaj's Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola. Together the threesome unleashes much mayhem in the semi-rural Haryana landscape that this whimsical political satire is set in. Unfortunately, not all of it makes sense.

The director, who is also the co-writer along with Abhishek Chaubey, reveals his hand in the opening sequence itself. A stretch limo is parked in the middle of a deserted farmland. All of a sudden, the vehicle revs up, gathers velocity and drives right into a liquor kiosk that stands in the way.

A flashback to "10 minutes earlier" reveals the reason. The owner of the car, Mandola (Pankaj Kapur), and his driver Matru (Imran Khan) have been denied their fill of a desi brew they cannot do without after sundown. They settle scores with the booze vendor by reducing his shop to rubble and making off with as many bottles as the limo can hold.

Just as well because when he is sober, Mandola isn't a nice man to know. He is short-tempered and full of himself. But when he is drunk, he develops a sense of humour and a heart that bleeds for the poor farmers of his village.

The latter bunch is up in arms against plans to pull their arable land into a proposed special economic zone. Mandola is their Enemy No 1 – he has his eyes on their holdings for he plans to build a factory in the village.

On his side is a corrupt politician, Chaudhary Devi (Shabana Azmi), whose clownish son (Arya Babbar) is engaged to Mandola's city-educated daughter Bijlee (Anushka Sharma).

Hovering somewhere in the background is an unseen rebel who calls himself Mao Zedong and instigates the peasants to revolt against the capitalist conspiracy to rob them of their land.

In one of the film's many surreal moments, Mandola, high on the aforementioned brew, leads a march against himself. The angry farmers follow him all the way to his mansion only to find him a changed man once he is back to his senses.

Bhardwaj gives the narrative's Brechtian soul a lively nukkad natak makeover and almost pulls it off. The scenes that work are delightfully droll – like the one in which a high-spirited Mandola, in the company of a petrified Matru, takes off in his private twin-seater although he has not the foggiest idea how to guide the aircraft back to the runway. Unfortunately, the scenes that work are too few and far between.

Pankaj Kapur, as always, is in fine fettle. But he is short on support either from his co-actors or the film's writers. So he is forced to go overboard at times in order to compensate for the yawning gap that Imran and Anushka leave in the plot.

Imran, chocolate boy of many a rom-com, tries his best to carry off the rugged village boy from JNU persona but falls way short of the target. As for Anushka, she could well have just walked in from the sets of either Band Baaja Baraat or Jab Tak Hai Jaan. She is out of place here.

But for all its failings, Matru Ki Bijlee... is a must watch for being true to its spirit. 

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