Jason Sondhi
In the atlas of narrative storytelling, there is no territory that elicits a visceral charge in me as reliably as injustice. All flavors of the theme work: false imprisonment is a classic which never fails to rile me up, bureaucratic farces infuriate, and watching characters face social ostracization due to small-minded bigotry offends me to a disproportionately personal degree. In Counterfeit Kunkoo, writer/director Reema Sengupta mines this familiar type of drama to potent effect, eliciting audience outrage through a story of housing discrimination in Mumbai and the patriarchal propriety which undergirds it.
At the time of its 2018 debut at Sundance, Counterfeit Kunkoo was the first narrative short from India to play the festival in 16 years. The film’s effectiveness is partly due to playing against type—the film avoids the bombastic melodrama that defines the country’s output on the world cinema stage, instead favoring a naturalistic, though no less indignant, style of social realism that privileges first-time actors, authentic locations, and diegetic sound. While not without humor, the result is a claustrophobic journey of foreclosing opportunity, as audiences experience the frustration and desperation of a woman trapped by societal mores and beset by constant indignities.
Smita (Kani Kusruti) is a Mumbai woman of modest means, embroiled in an abusive marriage. The film opens in an abortion clinic, and this initial scene is a work of marvelous storytelling concision. Sengupta lays out the context of the story in a quick and elegant manner: Smita is done with the marriage (her husband remarks that she is no longer wearing her marital ornaments) the reason is abuse (he raises a fist to her at the clinic and she visibly shirks) and this new single status is going to be a problem for her (despite being estranged, his presence at the clinic is necessary—the abortion paperwork needs a husband to sign).
Shot in authentic locations, the cramped confines of the sets contribute to the film’s visual style.
Aided by a small, but ample income as an independent craftswoman, Smita has the means to strike out on her own, but in the middle of a workday, an agent barges into her new apartment uninvited to show the place to a prospective couple. The landlord is a distant relative to Smita and lets her stay for a while, but the building society will not allow “bachelors” so the home is to be rented out from under her.
What follows is a brisk montage of rejection, as Smita tries and fails to secure housing at numerous locations in the city. Single women of Smita’s age are seen with suspicion, and no one will accommodate her. While this scenario seems absurd to Western audiences, it is a long-standing issue in India. Sengupta explains that “I wrote the script almost ten years ago when I was feeling angry and helpless about my mother facing housing discrimination. But the film itself is a fictional story with completely different characters. Living in Mumbai, you hear unending stories about people facing housing discrimination, and unfortunately, all these years later, the situation hasn’t improved.”
Despite the real-world premise, Counterfeit Kunkoo is less an “issue-film” than a character study of Smita. While she summons a degree of tenacity that is surprising (least of all to herself), she is no activist, and the film is careful to center itself upon her character, with frequent close-ups that punctuate her emotional journey. Only through this grounding does the film dramatize larger concerns. “I wanted to explore the idiosyncrasies of everyday misogyny in urban India, the battles one must fight, and whether winning or losing those battles even matters.” Sengupta explains.
Shot in 12 locations over 4 days, the film is briskly paced over its 15min runtime and avoids the languor that can sometimes plague social realist works. There is a strong sense of purpose to each scene and Sengupta, alongside her DP, Harshvir Oberai, employs the camera with vigorous style. Blocking takes on exaggerated importance in the tight confines of the authentic locations, and the film often utilizes selective focus to isolate its characters in wider compositions. There are also numerous low-angle shots that serve to visualize power imbalances and impart a sense of looming threat. Cut tightly, the film utilizes smash cuts well for ironic juxtapositions, though again, the humor this sometimes provides is of an exasperated and absurd variety.
Off its Sundance premiere, Counterfeit Kunkoo had an impressive festival run that saw it play Palm Springs, Aspen, and Short Shorts Asia, picking up over 2 dozen awards along the way. Senpugta, educated in the UK, resides in Mumbai and is emblematic of an exciting generation of progressive storytellers emerging from the country. Co-founder of CATNIP, an eclectic production company, she has overseen hundreds of commercial projects (directing many of them) for brands such as Red Bull and Amazon, and a number of music videos. She is currently developing feature and television projects set in both India and the US that explore Indian culture in an era of social change.