Safed review: Innovative plot intervened with average direction almost takes the light out of ‘white’!

2/5

There have been many films that has seen ladies playing widows. At the same time there have been many films with eunuchs in important role/s. But, this Abhay Varma, Meera Chopra starrer ‘Safed’ seems to be for the first time a film has been made that has a eunuch and a widow as its central characters.

Safed review:

The film 'Safed' starts off with a hard-hitting statement that states, ‘The society we are growing up in is not growing up”, by Sandeep Singh. The film is set in Varanasi of 1990. The audiences are taken to the death of a eunuch, wherein everyone is happy and also cursing the dead body, plus slapping the body with a footwear. In addition to all this, there is also a chicken leg piece that gets thrown on the face of the dead body! The tribe is being headed now by Guru Maa (Jameel Khan).

This is followed by the introduction of Kaali (Meera Chopra) who has just become a widow. On the other side, there is the film’s hero Chaandi (debutante Abhay Varma), who lives with Guru Maa and her associates. He is still to come to terms with the fact that he is a eunuch whose parents had given him away to the tribe to be taken away with them.

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Despite the existing situations and circumstances, Chaandi refuses to live the life of a eunuch and that too amongst the eunuchs! One untoward incident makes him gather all the courage in the world and run away from the entire tribe and start living his life with a distinct identity of his own.

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Looking back in time since his birth, he recalls all the incidents and people that and who have tortured him. Unable to take all this any longer, he decides to die by suicide. And that’s why he goes to neck deep water and drowns himself. It is under the water he comes across Kaali. Eventually, they fall in love and are happy in each other’s company. Time and again, Kaali tells Chaandi that she does not like eunuchs and that she gets really scared and petrified seeing them.

Just as Kaali and Chaandi think of taking their relationship to the next level and are about to live their lives together, Kaali comes to know the bitter fact that Chaandi is a eunuch by birth. Does Kaali accept Chaandi despite knowing his ‘background’ or do the two lovers depart forever or is there some miracle that takes place in uniting the lovers despite their major differences is what forms the rest of the film.

As for the cast, debutante Abhay Varma tries too hard to behave like a eunuch, but fails at a lot of places. One really needs to applaud his guts and conviction for having chosen such a bold film as his debut. He really needs to work a lot on emotional scenes. Hopefully, in the future, we get to see him as one of the promising stars on the horizon. On the other hand, there is Kaali (Meera Chopra) who delivers a restrained performance. There are times when her character becomes majorly unbelievable and untrue, but that flaw can be attributed to the script writers.

What is really sad and disheartening to see is the talent of an established veteran actor like Jameel Khan) being wasted very badly in a role that is without any meat. Ditto for yet another talented actress like Barkha Bisht whose role seems like ‘just for the sake of having a character’ in the film. The script (yet again) fails miserably to justify the existence of her character. Sadly enough, besides these four there are not any major characters to be written about.

Now for the main villain of the film- the script. Although the film’s premise is a beautiful and novel one (that of a eunuch falling in love with a widow), the script’s treatment to the characters seems totally half baked. Even though the dialogues (Rishi Virmani, Sandeep Singh) are hard-hitting, still it does not deliver the deserved impact, because the lip sync between the characters and the toned-down words are very much visible, which acts as a spoilsport. What adds to the misery is the make-up of the characters. It is really saddening (and sickening) to see the film’s leading man is having more mucus from the nose than tears in the eyes!

The film’s music is also nothing great to write about, despite the presence of stalwarts like Rekha Bharadwaj and others (Shail Hada, Shashi Suman, Jazim Sharma, Monty Massey, Jahaan Shah, Sandeep Singh). With the film being flawed at a handful of places, flaws in editing (Rajesh G Pandey, Rahul Om Reniwal) just can be overlooked!

Safed verdict:

If you are someone who likes to see experimental films, then, ‘Safed’ can be recommended. But the fact also remains that, the cinegoers of today will prefer a heroine clad in a modern chiffon sari than a heroine clad in a ‘safed’ saree (if you know what we mean!)