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The incredible thing about film festivals is the platform that it serves for the showcasing of talent from around the world. This year’s Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF) took place in April and among the films that were selected for this highly coveted Festival was ‘Circus’ by Tariq Vasudeva. The 26-minute-long short film – the only one from India in the main competition at MIFF – is his first venture into filmmaking but Vasudeva is already a household name in the theatre circuit, his is a face you’d definitely recognise from television.
There are many introspections and questions that ‘Circus’ throws at you with each scene. Some leave you pondering over just how much progress we’ve made to be inclusive of women in the workplace, other scenes make your hair stand at the back of your neck for their brutally honest depiction of the frustrations that the class divide causes among people.
Set in present-day urban India, the film shows us the wide disparity between the rich and the poor of our society that coexists in very close quarters through the lives of the two main characters – a man and a woman. Both of our leads come from starkly different backgrounds, whose daily struggles and hurdles vary but fuel an inner rage that bubbles and bursts in very different ways.
To put it simply, and very topically, the story follows an upper-class working woman and a man who works as a domestic helper in a rich household. While one is trying to make her voice be heard in her career of choice, the other is trying to navigate his place in a society that is constantly dismissive and disconnected from the trials and tribulations of those ‘beneath’ them. What unfolds through the narrative is a depiction of everyone’s search for meaning in life, on one hand, and the underlying animalistic tendencies of human nature and behaviour that creep their way up to the surface the further we are pushed.
The most important, and challenging aspect of the film and shoot, Vasudeva shares, was perhaps the courage that was needed to work on such a hard-hitting film. The dark undertones and nuances of the characters required real motivation and faith, especially for the actors portraying these characters. “They really had to pull off very intense performances and that was not easy at all. Their courage in playing these roles cannot be underestimated and I hope that actors like this are recognised and given the biggest opportunities - something that is desperately missing in the Indian film industry,” says Vasudeva.
With two screenings of the film at MIFF, Vasudeva is very happy with the reception the film got. Being a hard-hitting film that holds a mirror up to society, people were very surprised by the nature of the film, especially one coming out of India. Depicting the brutal reality of life in an Indian city, Vasudeva was told that people felt numb in their seats when the screening ended – they found it both very disturbing and thought-provoking at the same time.
“They also related to the film and the fact that it highlights issues between men and women - issues that are completely universal and need to be addressed urgently all over the world. Most were expecting a Bollywood movie from India because that seems to be the general perception of Indian films abroad. I was glad that nobody felt ‘Circus’ was a typical Indian film once the screening had been completed,” he tells us.
“Women in India face a lot of hurdles in the workplace. It is hard enough getting hired for the job, but women are confronted with male-dominated workspaces where they are far outnumbered by the number of men in the office. In addition to that, glaring class differences are an everyday part of our lives in the cities today - we have glitzy malls right next to a downtrodden slum, fancy cars next to rickshaw pullers. Many people in India cannot afford a lavish lifestyle and this creates frustration, especially since tempting advertisements further fuel everyone’s desires.
I wanted to write a short film that explores some of these ideas and that is when I came up with the script for ‘Circus’,” says Vasudeva explaining the conceptualisation of his films storyline.
There is a certain darkness to the film that you can sense right from the start. The actors, Yuki Ellias and Debtosh Darjee, play their parts to the T and are hard to forget. In the film, Ellias’s character fights to be taken seriously in a workplace that is dominated by men, where a token representation of female employees is all you get. No longer able to curtail her anger, Ellias gives a powerful performance in a scene that ended up being the trigger of the film’s title as well as one of the director’s most memorable moments, not just as the maker of the film but as a viewer too. “The woman in the film is upset about being sidelined and dominated by men in the workplace. In the film she says, ‘It’s a fucking circus!’ This is the reason I chose the title of this film to be ‘Circus’. Being a woman in urban India is like being caught in a mad, chaotic circus where everyone forgets the challenges that they face daily. This circus is run by men who constantly vent their frustrations on women and tragically, strong women who speak their minds are constantly put down and destroyed the most. This is why the outspoken woman in the film is the one who vehemently states - ‘It’s a fucking circus!’
There is one more part of the film that has an impact on me - and that is the scene where the man eats like an animal. It represents the primitive and primordial nature inside many men who feel wronged and frustrated in their lives - and we must accept that this animalistic undercurrent is palpable among men in urban India today,” shares Vasudeva.
Personal savings, support of friends, family, a minimal budget and equipment, sweat and many long hours went into bringing this film to life. Everyone from the cast and crew worked free of charge, Vasudeva tells us, even rehearsing with him for 15 days before the shoot. No fancy cameras, lights, gadgets or doodads - just a camera and tripod, pure skill and talent of the entire team. A special mention must be made for the cinematographer Harshvir Oberai who worked with absolutely bare minimum resources and did not charge a fee either. He worked tirelessly without any support (no gaffer, no focus puller, minimum lights and a DSLR camera) - Harshvir’s artistry and camera work was nothing short of amazing in this film - and he proved that talent and hard work is irreplaceable, especially in a landscape dominated by Bollywood movies that display zero aesthetics in their camera work.
“All the locations where we shot were given for free by friends and relatives. A friend even helped host a party so that we could invite people over and shoot a party scene in the film since there wasn’t enough in the budget to hire a lot of extras. I personally drove the car every day to pick up and drop off the shooting equipment as we could not hire someone else to do the transportation. There was no Art department, no Costumes department - everyone in the small team we had chipped in and helped - which meant we were all carrying out dozens of responsibilities to put together the shoot.”
The scenes of ‘Circus’ aren’t easy to acknowledge nor digest as a living reality, but this is a film that needs to be seen. We were lucky enough to get to watch the film, courtesy of the director, and wholeheartedly agreed with Vasudeva when he says that it serves as “a reminder of the circumstances that we all live in today.”
He adds, “If some people are disturbed by the film, that is fine with me, as long as it starts a conversation and helps us get to the root of the issue. At the present time, we all have strong feelings on the high level of aggression and brutal violence displayed by men against women, but to truly understand why it exists we have to try land look at all the possible causes one step at a time, as bothersome as those causes might be. And I think it is critical to look at the effect of societal conditions on the psychology of the Indian man and how that impacts the social fabric in our country. It is very uncomfortable to do this but I think it will help us come up with some answers, and hopefully then, we can all find a solution to this national crisis.”
Currently, ‘Circus’ has not been released nor is it available for viewing online. You can follow the film’s Facebook page for more information and updates here.
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