Cinema | Stargazer

The Gift of Dunki

“Felt like a gift I got for my more than decade-long hustle in the industry,” says Taapsee Pannu

Kaveree Bamzai Kaveree Bamzai | 08 Mar, 2024

As she gets ready for the release of her next film, Haseen Dillruba 2 (Netflix), Taapsee Pannu says her last movie, Dunki, “felt like a gift I got for my more than decade-long hustle in the industry”. Indeed, Pannu has created a path for herself, and held the door open for outsiders like her, with her production house, aptly called Outsider Productions. She has also carved a niche for herself as an action heroine with dramatic ability, ever since she charged into Hindi cinema with a cameo as a spy in the thriller Baby (2015). Says Pannu, “When I got a call for Dunki it was too good to be true, so much so that I actually didn’t believe that I’m a part of such a big film until I finished the first schedule. And now that I look at what it has done to my career I can proudly say it’s a milestone that I can look at and feel that I did find my space. It’s the validation an ever-so-unsure outsider got, that if you love your job and keep working for the right reasons there is light at the end of that tunnel. My luck and hard work did align itself for this one opportunity which I am aware doesn’t happen often in this industry.” Pannu has been fearless in the choice of films both to act in and produce, going toe-to-toe with Amitabh Bachchan in the thrillers Pink (2016) and Badla (2019). The most recent film she released under Outsider Productions is Dhak Dhak (starring Fatima Sana Shaikh, Dia Mirza, Ratna Pathak Shah, and Sanjana Sanghi) which received immense praise. And unlike many actors-turned-producers, she doesn’t feel compelled to act in every film she produces.

Delhi’s Seedy Underbelly

He may have been raised in Canada, but Richie Mehta has made Delhi his subject of specialisation. The first season of Delhi Crime on Netflix established him as the poet laureate of Delhi’s underbelly, underlining the vast disparity inherent in the Capital’s culture. In Poacher, a new series on Prime Video, he returns to it, situating the fountainhead of ivory poaching in Delhi, with its network of politicians, high net worth individuals and big business, even as hunting denudes Kerala’s forests of the magnificent elephants. Mehta has shot two films (Amal, 2007, and Siddharth, 2013), three short films, and a documentary in Delhi. So when he reconstructs an actual raid on ivory hoarders he witnessed in East Delhi, it is as thrilling as it is authentic. As people gather in a crowded neighbourhood, troublemakers seem ready to intervene and riots seem imminent, with protesters preventing the agencies from loading the contraband. Mehta has been spending six months of the year in Delhi since 2003, except for the pandemic years. Shooting Poacher has given him a sense of the diversity of India, and an appreciation of the animals who still remain in cities. “They were here first,” he says, and says wherever he could he would narrate the story from the animal’s point of view, whether it was a sleeping dog, a monkey walking on a high wire, or an owl, as watchful as ever. “They know we are harmful, that we’ve encroached on their land,” he says. The most dangerous animal remains the human.

Scene and Heard

Article 370 is only one of many movies from the Mumbai film industry that seems aligned to the government’s agenda though producer Aditya Dhar has said the ruling party doesn’t need any help from filmmakers. Nonetheless, they seem only too happy to provide cinematic assistance: on the anvil is Swatantra Veer Savarkar directed by and starring Randeep Hooda and The Sabarmati Report starring Vikrant Massey. Hooda has called his film “anti-propaganda” because of what he calls the propaganda against Savarkar. Massey is headlining The Sabarmati Report (based on the Godhra incident and offered as a homage to 59 innocent lives lost there) and its trailer shows him questioning a bulletin where he has to read out the line that the train suffered an accident. It also makes him speak in Hindi, something the bulletin head scoffs at, immediately establishing him as the voice of the underdog. Ironically, just a few weeks ago, Massey was the subject of intense right wing trolling for declaring that he comes from a multi-cultural and multi-religious family in which his brother converted to Islam. Surely that perception will change when the movie is released. Article 370, starring Yami Gautam, has earned ₹52 crore on a budget of ₹20 crore. No doubt Mumbai movies hope to make money off the patriotism bandwagon.