Director Ramin Bahrani jumped at the chance to helm this film adaptation of Aravind Adiga's 2008 Man Booker prize-winning novel of the same name, cementing a place in the Iranian-American filmmaker's repertoire of pictures where small men speak truth to power and underdogs shine. ‘The White Tiger' is Bahrani's first cinematic foray away from the confines of the voracious capitalism of America, this time taking him deep into the sights and sounds of an evolving India.
Bangalore 2010: We zoom into the mug of a wealthy-looking youngster, cigarette-in mouth and decked out in a black and maroon suit finery, looking like a million bucks.However, Balram (Adarsh Gourav) was not always the look of success he portrays. The kooky socio-realist comedy begins with Balram writing a lengthy email to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, inviting him to an unadulterated look at Modern India, told through his life story growing up. The shot then flashbacks to a previous time in the village of Laxmangarh, where Balram recounts spending his childhood.
The village is ruled by a landlord called ‘the Stork' (Mahesh Manjrekar) who “feeds so much on the village that the villagers have nothing to feed on”. He has an equally fearsome son; a rotund and brutish good-for-nothing who goes by ‘the Mongoose' (Vijay Maurya). After a series of mishaps growing up in the village, Balram ends up as the new chauffeur for the landlord's prodigal son, Ashok (Rajkummar Rao), who returns to the motherland from the United States, together with his beautiful wife, Pinky (Priyanka Chopra Jonas). Balram gets embroiled in Ashok's life affair with unflinching servitude, until a stab in the dark sets afoot a chain of events that brightens the light at the end of the tunnel for young Balram.
Ramin Bahrani has something to say, and he pulls no punches in driving his message across in this picture where he serves as both director and screenwriter: India has many problems, and they need to be solved post-haste. In fact, in one pivotal scene, Balram acknowledges that India has none of clean drinking water, public transport, sense of hygiene, courtesy and discipline. A country, where since antiquity struggled to segregate its people into a thousand different castes, is now steadily sorting them into only two main categories: the men with small bellies and the men with large bellies.
Somethings got to give and you can sense the visceral feeling that Bahrani has plenty of concepts on his plate that he is just dying to make light of. This is his folly, as ‘The White Tiger' starts promisingly with its absorbing allegory on the poor man's plight, one quite relatable in this dog eat dog world we are living in, but soon spirals into a hurried and clunky third act that concludes not only abruptly but shockingly.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas gives an incredibly convincing performance as a spoilt American-bred socialite, doing away with her Indian accent and conservative Bollywood mannerisms to emerge with a refreshing Americana-tinged discourse and slap to the face of authority and tradition. Adarsh Gourav evolves before our very eyes from the witless ‘internet-buying' servant into the sly and ruthless entrepreneur Balram was destined to be, providing a nuanced and character-driven study of life at both ends of the spectrum.
The first act of the film was an unfiltered visual feast with editor, Tim Streeto together with director, Ramin Bahrani blending many picturesque shots of an authentic India seamlessly, displaying how the country is violently steeped in tradition yet fighting to stay afloat amidst the escalating deluge of globalization. Italian cinematographer Paolo Carnera, no doubt contributes a kaleidoscope of exceptional fodder to work with, from the infamous claustrophobia of the streets of Delhi to wide shots of the smoky expanse of India's natural landscape and spiritual perspective towards death.
A particular succinct yet meaningful sequence depicts a young Balram striking a rock on the ground before the shot cuts to that of a fresh hot plate of rice and naan- effectively conveying how many people get by on a hardscrabble life of physical labour just to survive in the world's second-most populous nation.
Ultimately, after winding through a life exploring betrayal, farcicality, and the eternal conflict of light versus darkness, Balram emerges as the White Tiger of his own life. Putting pen to paper the legacy that his childhood teacher envisioned for him. Like one of the rarest animals that come out of the jungle only once in a generation, Balram did what many others dare not do: escape a life of servitude and leave his legacy behind.
Now the ball is in India's court. A dawning of ‘the new India' is at hand and bursting at the seams. Many White Tigers are clawing their way out from the Jungle of life. What is the world's largest democracy going to do about it?
