Do Bigha Zameen, with a twist

City Lights could have done with fewer songs and a high-intensity plotline for greater impact

From the National Award winning camp of Hansal Mehta and Rajkummar Rao comes a remake of acclaimed British-Filipino production Metro Manila (as reiterated in both the opening and closing credits, a refreshing change from regular mainstream rip-offs). The Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt -produced City Lights, in the vein of earlier Indian films such as Do Bigha Zameen and Salaam Bombay, paints a stark picture of the plight of the small town man in the big bad city (Bhatt gave promotional interviews invoking his earlier hard-hitting dramas Saraansh and Zakhm). Ex-army driver and bankrupt clothes seller Deepak Singh (Rao), his wife Rakhi (newcomer Patralekha) and their daughter Mahi make up an impoverished family in a small Rajasthan town. Dreaming of a better life in a big city, they pack their bags and move to Mumbai, only to be conned by masters of urban trickery.

After being duped of all their savings on the first day itself, the family struggles for a livelihood, sleeping on footpaths, under construction buildings, in garbage dumps. With tear-jerking desperation to make ends meet, Rakhi becomes a dancer in one of Mumbai’s seedy orchestra bars.  Her painful and invasive interview by an extremely voyeuristic boss is in sharp contrast to Deepak’s at an armoured security agency, where he lands the job with zero background check and a little help from his friendly manager (Manav Kaul). “15,000 milenge, shaheed ho jana iss 15,000 ke liye,” he advises, reminding us of the millions of migrants engaged in life-threatening jobs for a pittance.

No kindness ever comes for free though, and Rakhi and Deepak are forced to realise this soon enough when they gradually get embroiled in a dangerous conspiracy involving a box full of cash.  Their damning simple-mindedness and the city and its hardened locals’ unforgiving cruelty becomes their ultimate undoing.

Metro Manila, written and directed by Academy Award winning director Sean Elis, garnered positive reviews upon release last year for its compelling visual language and gritty portrayal of the hardened realities of workingclass city life. Its story arc may not have been entirely novel, but the film relied on stylish cinematography and tight editing that made for gripping drama that rose above the mundane and mere melodramatic. City Lights, however, loses the originally compact plot to too many poignant song sequences and a drifting adapted screenplay. The visual narrative is tied together with sweeping glimpses of slum clusters ensconced within lavish high rises, the quotidian sun rising and setting across the sea, and city lights in bokeh in the backdrop of every scene. “Gareebi ek bohot badi bimari hoti hai,” sums up their clichéd misfortunes.

The film, while scoring high on fine performances and imbued with a deep-felt socially-driven consciousness, needed to be more smartly structured for greater impact. With a spate of meaty role-playing since last year, Rao can now easily be proclaimed as third-in-line (behind Nawazuddin Sidiqqui and Irrfan) to the supremely talented ‘Indie Everyman’ throne after his endearing local accent and chiselled adarsh baalak, village bumpkin, city wretch performance here. Patralekha and Kaul too play their parts adequately. Within the film, Mehta has got the heartrending pathos down pat, (sample “samay ki baarish ne kar diya beghar”) but as a thriller City Lights can be found wanting in intrigue and suspense. Fewer loose ends and musical sequences and a high-intensity plotline would have, at the very least, made this low-budget film into a cult classic, if not a box-office hit.