Movie Review: As Gentle as A Hammer Blow : Judgmental Hai Kya?

 Judgementall Hai Kya? is bit of a jack of all trades kinda movie. It is a whodunit and a thriller and it loves to show off its psychedelic inspired takes on mental health. Unfortunately director Prakash Kovelmudi is unable to pull off most of what he set out to do, even though the two protagonists played by Kangana Ranaut and Rajkumar Rao do put in credible performances. 


The legend of Sita, in a modern interpretation of the Ramayan is used in the second half of this movie to staggering visual effect, as extravagantly costumed creatures from the myth walk around the streets of London. A surfeit of rainbow-hued graffiti in eye popping colours serves as a backdrop, making for a psychedelic effect and the word that springs to mind is "unhinged". Bobby's (the protagonist played by Kangana Ranaut) lucidity, already straining thin, now comes undone, in a grotesque culmination. 

Judgementall Hai Kya dazzles in bits, it has a kind of splendour. But by the time we get to the unraveling of the climax, it gets wearying, delivered like hammer blows to your eyes and ear drums. The innovative use of sound and the imaginative visuals get tiresome as the script falls flat. The narrative does not hold. Intricately linking pretty threads together does not always produce a beautiful tissue. The threads hang limp, scattered all over the place. 

These threads used to illustrate the "insanity" of the protagonist are good enough by themselves. 

Right at the outset Bobby is set up as a narrator who cannot be relied upon. Indeed the red herrings strewn all over the storyline are obvious to an adept thriller watcher, and Bobby's unrelaibility is put to good use here. Manipulation most fine. 

What is "normal" and who do we we accept as "people like us"? How far are we willing to go to accept differences are questions raised by this movie. In India and in Bollywood, there has been talk of how mental illness has become more acceptable, with Deepika Padukone, the biggest woman actor of her generation having disclosed her struggles with depression. In the west, and the US a motley crew of therapists on instagram have gone mainstream. Whilst the culture of awareness grows, real acceptance still seems way beyond the horizon. 

 The protagonist does end up being a "hero", but her idiosyncrasies are such that it's difficult to imagine transferring this acceptance to the everyday for us, the viewers. 

Perhaps you would say that this is only art or that it is not the job of commercial cinema to educate. That conversation is for another day, yet we would all agree that representation matters. Intersectionality is all about giving a voice and a face to the under represented. And as the acceptance of mental illness expands to an extent, we are also faced with the question, what is reality, and what is normal? Even when we know we ought to seek help, our fear of being judged keeps us from it. As in life so at the movies.

The alert viewer and the whodunit connoisseur would be aware of the use of mental illness as a prop. It is evident where the script and even the screen play have been totally "inspired" by British crime dramas and of course Hollywood, which continues to "inspire" our cinema. 

Some of the twists are totally inexplicable. How does Bobby suddenly turn up at her cousin's place in London and how does she fund the trip? How is a dubbing artist suddenly get accepted by a theatre company and lands a plum role?

That said, Kangana Rant is in her element. Her performance shines through in most of the scenes. Her hysteria feels credible, though the diagnosis and its manifestations seemed too glib. 

The childhood trauma that Bobby suffers has an indelible impression on her. The theatrical, almost unreal enactment of the scene of the trauma felt jarring. It seemed to minimize the horror of the assault. I imagine it is a deliberate ploy, to make it all look unreal, to depict her craziness as merely fanciful.

Imperceptible erasure of reality and the gas lighting is something women are so used to experiencing. We are told again and again, we are "too sensitive" that we "can't take a joke" when the joke is at our expense. When we try to talk about abusive husbands, partners, we are told 'but he's a good guy' as if our own lived experiences don't matter. The adage add women and stir is not a recipe for bringing gender sensitivity to a script, is well illustrated by this movie. Script writer Kanika Dhillon chooses to undermine the narrative of a woman with such a trauma, so that fair representation remains remote. concession, mercy 

Any woman's rights activist will tell you that far more women die at the hands of their husbands and partners, yet Bobby's fascination with domestic violence is depicted as almost quirky. She is shown making origami with scraps cut out of newspapers, all of them reports of violent attacks by men. 
The relative tenderness of the narration towards Bobby is just about balanced by the mystery of Raghav, played by Rajkumar Rao. 
On the one hand the narrative seeks to undermine Bobby the narrator, yet it is also indulgent. But as the narrative turns out why isn't the trauma the other characters honored similarly? 

(Tumhara trauma trauma hai, mera trauma gaya tel lene)


Disjointed and patchy, and overly too long even at its short running time of just about 2 hours, I would still recommend Judgementall Hai Kya as a one time watch. While we make do with what we have, we keep demanding for better. 

Does a Rapist Deserve Compassion?

Imagine you are a rapist. Yes, tough even to imagine yourself as one, right? Just stay with the thought, please. Instead, let's ask what happened on your journey- what made you feel compelled to violate the dignity of another human, invade his/her bodily integrity?

Somewhere, somebody failed you: your parents, teachers or the other structures of society. Or maybe, each played a little part. Somehow, the natural emotion of empathy, the human ability to feel another's pain, was slowly killed in you.

 It did not happen overnight. The process was most likely gradual. Regardless, as an adult, you are going to be held responsible for your actions.

Let's assume the law catches up with you. You have broken the law and the rules of society. At the end of the long drawn due process you are sentenced to incarceration. This incarceration could be for many reasons. It could be punishments for your actions. Or it could be to protect the public from you. It could be meant as a deterrent for the future or it could give you an opportunity at rehabilitation. It could even be a combination of these. 

In any case your incarceration is a segregation from society
prison is punishment, a systematic deprivation of the liberty of the individual, which is otherwise guaranteed to every citizen of the nation state.

However, it is the deprivation of liberty that should be the punishment, not the nature of the regime.

In India  talk about treatment of convicted rapists has invariably been around "deterrence", "revenge" and "exemplary punishment". This has gained much more currency after the 16th  December 2012 rape case. There is almost no mention of rehabilitation. 

So is it our contention that a man who commits a crime is to be condemned for life? Is there to be no redemption for such a convict? 

Let's assume you committed a rape and now you are in prison. Given that the more-connected in India get away with crime, you are probably uneducated, or barely literate, and have seen the worst of society. And now you are sent to the place which is a crawling with the dregs of society. People who really do not have much to look forward to in life.

It is my argument that a just and humane society should expect to redeem men like you. It might sound idealistic. Especially with our mindsets today. If our institutions are supposed to be  a reflection of us, as a people, then surely our prison system is a shameful proof of our sub human instincts?

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" may be a credo we don't want to follow anymore. But we come pretty close to it with our prison conditions, don't we? 

Dehumanising conditions in our prisons are a violation of basic human rights of the convict. Yes, he had done something appalling, but he is human  and he does have rights.

Upon his release, we expect a prisoner to show compassion for others and abide by the law. Yet, if neither society, nor the law, show him any compassion ourselves, how do we expect him to reciprocate?

Unless we think that a person once convicted is to remain behind bars for the rest of his life- and that is what a life term may mean to many_ we must look for ways to enable every convict a chance at redemption. To a life after prison. He must be afforded every chance to redeem himself, not just to others, but in his own self and return as a constructive, productive member of society.
Only if we invest in sympathy for the lowliest, most craven members of our community, can we hope for it to be reciprocated.
Do we have it in ourselves to display compassion for every member of our community? Are we ready for it? 

( P.S. The whole exercise of getting you to imagine yourself as a rapist was to induce empathy, the feeling of walking in another's shoes. A basic human quality, fast receding from our common psyche.)