A quirky Roy film amid a big furore

Is all art political? This question has been central to many debates over the decades — the opening of the 76th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) has brought it up yet again. The festival is on till February 22.

Acclaimed filmmaker Wim Wenders, president of this year’s jury, triggered the debate when he told reporters, “We have to stay out of politics because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics.” The jury was being asked about German support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

Author Arundhati Roy, slated to participate in the festival, has dropped out, calling the jury’s stance “jaw-dropping”. The festival is screening the restored version of her 1989 film, ‘In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones’ in its Classics section. 

This doesn’t quite come as a surprise; Roy has always been vocal about a wide range of topics, from the state of democracy to press freedom, from fascism and Israel’s role in Gaza. In her acceptance speech after receiving the P Govinda Pillai award in 2023, she spoke about the horrors in Gaza and the silence around it, adding that if we say nothing, we are complicit in it. “Something in our moral selves will be altered forever.” 

Ironically, the 1989 film being shown at the Berlinale, directed and produced by Pradip Krishen, is also a “political” film, although in her latest book, ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’, she says “it was never meant to be anything more than fun, fringe cinema”. It still is a fun film, among other things.

Set in the ’70s, the National awards-winning film revolves around a group of architecture students in their final year, going about their classes, and talking about their dreams, hopes and disillusionments. There’s Anand Grover, aka ‘Annie’ (played by Arjun Raina) who is always ‘giving it those ones’ — ‘those ones’ is Delhi University slang of the ’70s; it refers to Annie doing ‘his usual thing’ — in this case, his takes on life and society.  In a chapter on the film in ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’, she writes about the time the film had an official screening at the International FIlm Festival, and film critic Derek Malcolm told her, “giving it those ones doesn’t really mean anything in English” to which she wished she had said, “Well obviously, Mr Malcolm, in England, you don’t speak English any more.” 

In the film, Roy plays Radha, who challenges accepted notions about urban architecture — asking questions about who we are building for and why. It has an ensemble cast, including a blink-and--miss appearance by Shah Rukh Khan, in one of his earliest screen appearances, and Raghubir Yadav.

One of Annie’s ‘those ones’ is his idea of planting fruit-bearing trees along railway tracks across the country. His take is that the soil is most fertile, enriched as it is by open defecation, a reality of the India he has seen and grown up in. He constantly mocks his principal, who goes by the nickname of Yamdoot (messenger of the god of death) played by Roshan Seth. The tensions between the two come to a head.

Several adventures follow before the jury assesses the students’ final thesis — Radha appears in a sari and a hat, with an air of lazy confidence and irreverence, as if to make a statement. Soon, the results are out — some sail through, others don’t. An epilogue shows you the fates of all the students, some years later.

The is not an explicitly angry film, although it reveals undercurrents of frustration — it has poignancy and humour, and you begin to root for each one of the characters. One is not sure if it is serendipity or design that a bunch of students strum along to ‘The Boxer’ by Simon and Garfunkel. With lines like, “I have squandered my resistance/For a pocketful of mumbles/Such are promises”, the song is at once political and personal, and summarises the film’s theme as well.

‘In Which Annie…’ shows a young India, an India where the youth are unafraid to ask questions and challenge authority. There is hope and cynicism in equal parts, and it is at once reminiscent of the 2005 Sudhir Mishra directorial, ‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’, which also discusses the aspirations of college-going youth against the backdrop of the Emergency. 

The cult classic has recently been restored in 4K by The Film Heritage Foundation, based in Mumbai and helmed by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur.