Sir, written and directed by Rohena Gera - 8 out of 10

Sir, written and directed by Rohena Gera
8 out of 10


Indian films have been very popular in our part of the world...perhaps they still are, given that a separate channel dedicated to Bollywood fare has been included in the more comprehensive package of the cable operators.

However, the ones we saw decades ago where rather ludicrous, oversimplified, with characters always singing...well, after some minutes of conversation, scheming and dark clouds over the future of the protagonists, there would be universal dancing, singing...the latter would sometimes be sad, but there never was a tragic ending to an Indian film.
To a certain extent, they became part of the local culture, for some of the more famous ones have names impregnated in memory - Loving the Elephants or something similar was one title- and became part of everyday talk, quotes from the dialogues were used...

Avaramu...ohoo was one line in a song

Sir could not be any different.
It has none of the clichés, soap opera schemes that were omnipresent in what we used to see many years ago.

Tillotama Shome is excellent as Ratna, a widow that has managed to leave the village and the family of her late husband to work in the big city, but only because she sends them four thousand rupees a month, she means one mouth less to feed and on condition she doesn't dishonor the relatives.
This had been an arranged marriage, her family had not known about the poor health of the prospective groom that would die soon after marriage and thus put an end to the life of his widow for practical and other purposes.

In rural India and elsewhere, medieval or ancestral habits and customs keep women as slaves of their spouses and when those die, they remain somehow the property of the in laws.
Thus, when Sir falls in love with his servant, Ratna, she is terrified for a few reasons, one of which being that the family that had allowed her to work in the town would get her by the hair, back to a slow death in the village.

The film is an interesting meditation on classes, the enormous distance between Sir and his maid, the fact that even if this is an enlightened man, who had spent time in America, moeurs, rules and customs make it impossible for him to be with a lower class woman.
Or maybe there is hope?