Siraj Syed reviews Mantra: Travails and travesties

In one scene of Mantra, the protagonist, a Delhi industrialist called KK (Kapil Kapoor) who is about to sell his bleeding chips-manufacturing business to his cash-rich multi-national rival, finds a Frenchman looking for a drug (of the smoking kind) and the two manage to find a dealer named Rahul. On a high, the man tells the Frenchman that the Beatles have split. Nothing wrong in breaking such news to a pot-partner, even if the guy happens to be French, and not British. Only, the film is set in 2004. Joke? Attempted humour? Your puff... I guess, is as good as his.

Mantra tries hard to live up to its title, and does disservice to itself by allocating that name to a chain of restaurants being run by the protagonist’s brother, who is not interested in Bro’s chips. A chip of the old block, he is certainly not. Mantra, meaning approximated to ‘magic solution’ or ‘cure-all chant’, focusses on all possible evils of post liberalisation Indian society, yet, neither dissects, any of them nor offers any solutions.

Crowd funded by 64 backers, who contributed Rs. 20 lakh (2 mn) in an open market, the movie highlights the business environment in India at the time in question. King Chips (edible potato kind) maker Kapil Kapoor, once the king of the snack business in India, now faces a certain bankruptcy. But it is not just his business that is making life difficult. He is not on the same page as his wife, his brother, his daughter, his son, his friends, his in-laws, or his political connections.

Over n-i-n-e-t-y minutes, we have issues of a non-cohabiting couple for who the passing away of their dog is the only uniting event in a long time, a daughter who almost gets raped in a car by drunk clubbers and develops a soft corner for the motor-cyclist who rescues her, the police who refuse to file her report because nothing really happened (and if it did, it was with mutual consent), a son who falls for an online female ‘stud’ who feels temporarily distanced from her loving husband, the lion-hearted motor-cyclist from Jharkhand, glib talking and downright corrupt politicians, a Muslim restaurant owner with self-respect, a little girl who refuses to buy the competing brand of chips and insists on King--in spite of hard-selling by the retailer, the lawyer wife who has a sympathetic corner for her Muslim advocate colleague, the grandpa who is a Governor of the territory, the truck-driver who takes KK into the multi-national’s factory, the moneybags financer who was once a friend, the restaurant-owner who finally finds his bed-mate in his bar, the fundamentalists who threaten to break-up the bar because it is called mantra—and therefore, abuses religious sanctity... Ok. We’ll hold it right there. You are not likely to spend a more innately boring 90 minutes in the foreseeable future. But then again, you never know!

Featuring

Rajat Kapoor as Kapil Kapoor, who keeps looking at himself in the mirror, brooding and reflecting, as his empire crumbles around him.

Lushin Dubey as Meenakshi Kapoor, his wife, whose hysteria culminates with “I want out”!

Kalki Koechlin as Piya Kapoor, who visits bars and clubs, gets drunk, gets into a car with strangers, locks lips, runs away, is rescued by the man on the bike who offers her his jacket, and traces him to the shanty where he lives, to return it

Shiv Pandit as Viraj Kapoor (Special Appearance), as the owner of Mantra, who must change the name of his establishment if he doesn’t want goons to tear it down

Adil Hussain (Special Appearance) as the man on the motorcycle who is shot with his back to the camera and doesn’t say a word, till the girls comes to return his jacket—this time he is both seen and heard, and that is the last we see of him

Rohan Joshi as Vir Kapoor, Kapil’s father, speaks good English

Yuri Suri as Mohan Kaul, a minister, is bald, and dons a wig when he goes down to pokey restaurants to devour delicacies, but gets into a verbal and physical duel that causes him to run, leaving his wig behind

Maya Krishna Rao as Shazia Siddiqui, the venture capital, and Mergers and Acquisitions specialist, who comes to pronounce the end of the journey for the King (chip) maker, but not before he gets a clause in that guarantees that the new buyers will continue to use his brand. “The brand must not die” are his parting words.

What about the audience, one might ask? Does Shillong-boy, writer-director Nicholas Kharkongor (he made ‘Fair and Lowly’ 2012, on India’s fairness cream ads and the craze behind the desire of an average Indian to look fairer), an economics graduate who has worked with Barry John’s Theatre Action Group and apprenticed under Rajat Kapoor (“Mantra is the best script I have read in five years,”—et tu Rajat?), have no sympathy for them? Well, he hates Bollywood for one. Making a film that may not have Bollywood elements is fine, but you must offer a viable alternative. That’s only fair. Mantra is nowhere near being alternative, only a travesty of film-making. That’s downright unfair.

Maybe...just maybe, the censors have wreaked more havoc than muting the 100-odd ‘objectionable’ words in the film. Oh, the travails of Indian film-makers who have to abide by the ‘guidelines of the Central Board of Film Certification! Maybe they have, in addition to the muting, deleted 100 seconds of visuals! Maybe 100 minutes? The latter is not possible, unless the film was 190 minutes long, in the first pace. Best film at SAIFF, New York and an official selection in IFFI and MAMI 2016!! Wonder which of the above developments is unfairer.

Rating: *

Trailer: https://youtu.be/Odj0uh0exGM