‘Satta’ by Madhur Bhandarkar revolves around the political progress of an upper-middleclass professional woman.
This movie is ‘zara hat ke’ from the regular fare. But, the subject is handled rather superficially and careful study of political matters is missing.
The story:-
Anuradha (Ravina Tandon) is a middle class working girl. She falls for Vivek Chauhan ( Sameer Dharmadhikari)- a politician’s son. Blind in love, Anuradha marries Vivek.
Marriage opens her eyes and she realizes that Vivek and his parents are actually ‘bad guys’ with suspicious characters.
Vivek soon goes to jail after killing a girl and his parents ask Anu to take his place- to be the candidate for local elections.
Yashvant (Atul Kulkarni)- a senior party worker encourages Anu to enter politics. A hesitant Anuradha takes up this challenge.
From this point onwards, the film progresses as Anuradha learns the basics of politics, her multidimensional relationship with Yashvant as mentor, lover and political rival, revenge on her disloyal husband and her emergence as a person with big political power- with satta.
The film’s strengths are the uncommon story and superb performances.
Anuradha struggles as a clean person in the corrupt environment and also as a woman who takes herself seriously. The concept of woman empowerment is handled very well.
Ravina Tandon is perfect as Anuradha. This was a challenging role and she has done it without being ‘loud’- a rare achievement. Equally impressive is Atul Kulkarni as Yashvant. He, too, acts without being ‘loud’. These two people make this average movie tolerable. Sameer Dharmadhikari is excellent.
Madhur Bhandarkar should have made the movie more fast-paced and he could have shown Anuradha’s political journey more convincingly. His earlier film- Chandni Bar was a film with good intentions but it also was intentionally explicit and with women objectification- basically to get commercial success. Satta is better than Chandni Bar in that respect, though the slang and crude language is irritating.
The Turning point scene - Anuradha is a typical middle class person who wants to stay miles away from politics. Yashvant tells her that educated people like her need to do more than just being apathetic.
The most stupid scene- When Anuradha goes to party gathering for the first time, she meets some businessmen and underworld people there. And she asks very innocently- why are these people here?
Give me a break now!!! Even a small kid now knows the nexus between these people. A ‘qualified professional’ like Anuradha is likely to be a little more ‘aware’.
In a nutshell, Satta is far from perfect but better than the regular flop shows. Ravina, Atul and Sameer’s acting did keep me interested enough not to touch the remote control too often.