Satluj Movie Review:

In a scene from Satluj, the protagonist Jaswant Singh Khalra (Diljit Dosanjh) talks about the first time humans might have observed the sun set. “They must have thought now the sun will never come back,” he says. “But a lamp, sitting in a hut, didn’t agree. It challenged the darkness.” It’s a haphazard anecdote which has clear historical loopholes but the metaphor hits. Sometimes, it’s important to not win but to only put up a fight.

Director: Honey Trehan

Cast: Diljit Dosanjh, Suvinder Vicky, Arjun Rampal and Varun Badola

Streamer: ZEE5

Director Honey Trehan, however, seems to have fought and won. After being stuck in a kafkaesque limbo for over three years with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) his film Satluj (originally titled Ghallughara (massacre) and then Punjab 95) quietly landed on OTT platform ZEE5 on Friday evening that too without any cuts as claimed by the makers (previous reports had stated that the censor board had asked for an impossible 120).

The film is the biopic of Jaswant Singh Khalra, a bank employee and human rights activist from Punjab, who exposed the state police’s extra-judicial killing of over 25000 people and labelling them as terrorists during the insurgency period post 1984’s Operation Blue star. For his work, the activist suffered an Orwellian fate. On September 6, 1995, he was abducted by plain-clothed policemen from his house. His body was never found.

Satluj begins with Diljit’s Jaswant struck by conscience after his friend Kirpal is found dead in the street. Soon, the latter’s mother, rendered unstable by grief, goes missing. Jaswant takes it upon himself to find her and in the process uncovers the top-down conspiracy by Punjab police to kill innocents and mark them as militants for rewards and recognition. Satluj is a study of administrative systems presented by Honey in a very matter-of-fact manner. It’s set in a Punjab riddled by grief, captured in grey hues of dawn and dusk (cinematography by KU Mohanan). A visual design which has now become a staple for North India-noir since Sudip Sharma’s Kohrra (2023). The film also features Suvinder Vicky (donning a turban again) as a Hans Landa-like cop Sugga who, as a voiceover informs us, can kill people with as minimum emotions as are required to drive a car. Suvinder plays the character with such nuanced evilness, with such a grim-reaper-gait, it’s enchanting. With the khaki, the flowy white beard, and the turban, Sugga looks very similar to Suvinder’s character in season 1 of Kohrra but it’s commendable how far different he plays this one. Diljit too can portray innocent hope like no other. Last month with Main Vaapas Aaunga and now Satluj, he continues to express a restrained resilience, a charming, dreamlike optimism.

The film, however, becomes more and more harrowing as it proceeds. Director Honey unflinchingly shows the state-sponsored violence against its people. After Diljit’s Jaswant goes missing, Arjun Rampal (whose voiceover sets the context of the film), comes in as the CBI officer investigating the case. From here Satluj flows in the fast current of an investigative thriller. It becomes a Shanghai-like mystery full with assembling witnesses some of which will, undoubtedly, flip in court. Arjun plays the officer with panache, pensively smoking and looking officious with a stache.

With visuals of bodies being thrown in the cold river and the title being Satluj, I couldn’t help but think of 2014’s Haider, the imagery of Jhelum river and the protagonist’s fight in it to find his “disappeared” father (Honey has extensively worked with Haider's director Vishal Bhardwaj) . Lately, with films like Main Vaapas Aaunga and previously series like Kohrra, for filmmakers Punjab has become the prototype-state to showcase the current state of the country. It’s a region which has gone through a lot from Partition to 1984 anti-Sikh riots to insurgency and to drug menace. For Hindi cinema though it has mostly been a place represented by either finger-licking food or comic relief sidekicks. A month after the real Jaswant Singh Khalra was abducted from his home, Shah Rukh Khan came up on screen, spreading his arms wide in Punjab’s mustard fields in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (Released on October 20, 1995). It might be getting visually repetitive with the cold hues but I am glad Punjab’s grief is finally getting a space on screen.