The Great Shamsuddin Family actor Kritika Kamra: I have to agree with the film’s politics, not my character’s
In Peepli Live (2010) director Anusha Rizvi’s recent sophomore release The Great Shamsuddin Family (currently streaming on JioHotstar), the protagonist Bani Ahmed (Kritika Kamra) has to finish a presentation for a job prospect. But that’s a macguffin. What we really get into is a heartwarmingly-hilarious comedy surrounding a Muslim family, which doesn’t shy away from commenting on the world it inhabits. A newspaper article, which Bani reads, talks about an FIR against a writer. The opening shot of the film has a vision of the Quran and also of George Orwell’s dystopian classic, 1984. A character fears that her husband might have been lynched, and a young Muslim boy brings home a Hindu girl to marry. For most of its part, The Great Shamsuddin Family is another crisis-comedy, a laugh riot full of confusion, but it knows where the laughter stops.
In a conversation with the film’s director Anusha Rizvi and lead actor Kritika Kamra, we pick their brains on formulating the everyday comedy of the film, its politics, and whether it was easy to get a green signal for a movie about a Muslim family at the centre.
The line of the year would be Shreya Dhanwantary’s from the film: “Ek insaan ki zindagi mein aise kayi muqaam aate hai, jinki wajah se bank mergers hote rehte hai (A person goes through a lot of moments in his life, some of them lead to bank mergers).” It cracked me up. The Great Shamsuddin Family has this absurd, everyday humour, which is not loud. Nobody is going for the punchline. How did you approach writing the film’s comedy?
Anusha Rizvi (AR): I take a lot of humour from daily observations. Like we have a scene in the film where the marriage registrar has had a heart attack. Now, the funny part comes in when we start thinking what happens to those 30-odd couples who were waiting—probably after eloping from their houses and hiding from their families—to get their marriages registered by this person. I feel India is such a place that even without trying, you find situations which are so absurd, yet so real.
Kritika, what was your takeaway when you read the script? What was Anusha’s brief to you about your character, Bani Ahmed?
Kritika Kamra: It was really refreshing. I don’t remember the last time I read something so relatable. It made me laugh, but also made me think. I smiled at the familiarity of it, but also felt sad with what my character was undergoing and feeling at certain times. Anusha has this wonderful quality of saying such deep things wrapped in humour. Who Bani is was very evident on paper. On set, Anusha and I only had conversations about Bani’s dynamics with her family and her relationships with people.
Anusha, does this film come from a personal space?
AR: To a certain extent, yes. Because, when you start writing a character there are some real-life inspirations you begin with. But as the story progresses the motivations have to be padded up. For Shamsuddin… and also for Peepli characters started from an actual space but eventually they moulded as the film’s plot progressed.
This film is a comedy-drama and at the centre of it there is a Muslim family. For a lesser film, this Muslim identity could have been incidental, but you go deep into the experience of being a minority in a polarized environment. What was your approach on peppering politics into the film? Did you have to censor certain things?
AR: See, when I decided to write the story of Bani Ahmed, who happens to be a Muslim, then automatically you also have to tell the story of her identity and her location in society. In the process, you will also have to discuss the time that she lives in. It was organic and it would have been dishonest for me as a writer to not address that.
There is a plot-point in the film where a Muslim man is trying to marry a Hindu girl. I wonder how you even got to mention that in a film in such intolerant times. Was it a smooth sail to get this film green-lit?
AR: It took me eight years to make this film. But not because of any particular…I mean, I don’t see my experience only in the individual capacity. It is something all independent filmmakers go through where we have projects we really love but you don’t, for some reason, get funding for them. It didn’t happen immediately for this one too but I am glad Alok Jain and Ajit Andhare ultimately backed it and JioHotstar then gave it a platform to be showcased. Specifically, if you are asking me about the characters Zoheb and Pallavi, there were no questions asked on that front. But smooth-sailing? I don’t know. No film making is smooth sailing.
Kritika, I liked how Bani being a Muslim was not the sole focus of the film. The identity experience wasn’t the whole plot and thankfully, both her and her family were not villainized in any way. But still, as an actor, when you are offered such a role is there any apprehension as to what kind of film it will be. How will the audience take it?
KK: My filmography will tell you that I don’t think of characters like that (Kamra was also part of Anubhav Sinha’s Bheed, 2023). The film might be about a Muslim family but it is being treated like any other family. But just like Anusha said, ofcourse since it is a Muslim family, the questions of identity will seep in.
Kritika, before choosing a project, how important is the politics of a film to you?
KK: It is very important, especially how it treats its women characters, or what it is trying to say about the world. I have to agree with the politics of the film, not necessarily of the character I am playing. Infact, I would go on to say that the filmmaker’s politics is also secondary. But then in art, personal is political, so the director’s political viewpoint will eventually become a part of the movie. The film, thus, has to be about something I don’t vehemently disagree with.
