Siya Movie Review: Alternates between hollow and harrowing

First features can feel more affected and ambitious than they’re ever intended to be. This is especially true of directors who have already cut teeth in other departments of the cinematic art. Manish Mundra—trailblazing producer of prize-winning films, from Masaan and Ankhon Dekhi to Newton and Ramprasad Ki Tervi—has now directed Siya, a film about rape and violence in Uttar Pradesh. Manish begins with naturalism, capturing dusty sunsets and fields abuzz with the noise of crickets. Soon, though, he makes an artful swerve, and the ‘film festival’ alarm bells start ringing.

Director: Manish Mundra

Cast: Pooja Pandey, Vineet Kumar

A permanent horror hangs on the face of Sita Singh (Pooja Pandey), who’s abducted, beaten and gang-raped by four men. She is rescued seven or eight days after her parents first approached the authorities. Police apathy abounds—“You’ll be disgraced,” the station in-charge warns, declining to file a First Information Report. Sita, too, appears resigned to this fate; it takes a while before she opens up to Mahender (Vineet Kumar), a family friend with a law degree, and pledges her will to fight.

In 2017, a 17-year-old girl was gang-raped in Unnao in UP. Siya draws heavily from that incident—barring a crucial detail, an attempt by the victim to immolate herself outside the Chief Minister’s residence, which catapulted the case to national attention. Likewise, any references to Hathras (we see a body forcibly cremated in the dead of the night, while the main perpetrator belongs to the dominant Thakur caste) are kept to a bare minimum. Manish, it appears at times, is playing safe by depoliticizing the subject of rape. After all, rapes happen everywhere irrespective of state, caste or creed. But these crimes were directly linked to the contexts they were unfolding in — and to ignore them is to miss a crucial piece of the pathology Manish is seemingly probing (a film that avoided this problem and still made it to theatres was Article 15).

Siya’s impact isn’t helped much by its visual grammar. There are slow, contemplative pans and dollies, often ending with a close-up of the victim’s face. We see ants crawling on her restraining chains. A dream sequence emphasizing Sita’s pain and trauma plays out like a bad street play. The exact sequence of her abuse is chopped up and relayed non-linearly. It’s a weird way to structure a film about sexual abuse — giving it the dimensions of a whodunit thriller.

There is, however, one moment of beauty and grace. At a river’s edge, Mahender and Siya are immersing her deceased father’s ashes. Just then, they hear gunshots and duck. The hopelessness of the scene is alleviated by a lone boat drawing in and ferrying them to safety.