‘Shivamma’: Busan Review

Dir/scr: Jaishankar Aryar. India. 2022. 104mins

Illiterate and impoverished, Shivamma (Sharanamma Chetti) has a daughter ready for marriage, a son at college, an ailing husband and a testy relationship with her brother, who grudgingly bankrolls his poor relations. So, when Shivamma learns about a pyramid scheme selling a miracle health product, she wholeheartedly buys into the myth of imminent riches. But, as this downbeat social realist drama emphasises, nothing good can come of Shivamma’s misguided attempts to get rich quick. This Kannada-language first feature, set in the rural state of Karnataka, in the southwest of India, is issue-led but unpolished; its non-professional actors frequently seem ill at ease. But it is unusual and commendable for the fact that, in the hapless but hard-nosed Shivamma, it foregrounds the story of the kind of woman who rarely gets to take centre stage; in Indian cinema and elsewhere.

The unvarnished approach extends beyond the plotting and takes in elements of the filmmaking

This is the first feature from Jaishankar Aryar, whose 2019 short film, Lacchavva, won Best Film at the Bangalore International Short Film Festival and a Special Mention at the Mumbai International Film Festival. Following its premiere in Busan’s New Currents strand, the film could find a home in other festivals; particularly those with a focus on social issues although it may struggle to connect with audiences outside of Kannada language-speaking regions in India.

This is not a film which romanticises the poverty and simplicity of rural lives, nor does it paint Shivamma in a particularly sympathetic light. She’s shrewish and impatient with her meek-mannered daughter, lashing out at the girl with both tongue and hand. A meeting with her brother, to plead for money for her daughter’s marriage, descends into a slanging match with her sister-in-law.

But she has a zealot’s passion for the miracle product Nuracle, bending the ears of all who cross her path with claims of its success in curing everything from obesity to academic failure. And she is susceptible to flattery. “I see something in you that they lacked,” says a salesman for the product who spotted her during a testimonial event, where other paid-up members of the Nuracle family make huge claims for their new found wealth and improved vitality. Shivamma wants to believe in the hope that the product offers, she clings to the belief that she too could turn her life around. She signs on the dotted line with her thumbprint, despite the protests from her son that she is being suckered by a Ponzi scheme.

There’s a blunt inevitability to the arc of Shivamma’s downfall, in this morality tale which doesn’t just punish the central character for her naivete but also takes swipes at her family  But the unvarnished approach extends beyond the plotting and takes in elements of the filmmaking; specifically Aryar’s work with his inexperienced actors. And this is where the picture trips up – for all the authenticity in terms of the backdrop and milieu, which is photographed with a dispassionate and unsentimental lens, the performances are frequently jarringly mannered and unconvincing, drawing us out of the film and emphasising the artifice rather than persuading us of its honesty.