There are certain short films you watch that leave you with an instinctive feeling of dread. Sometimes, these stories also reveal their potential to be full-length features. But then you run into the possibility of losing the precise feeling such films tend to evoke. Reema Maya's “Nocturnal Burger”, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year and is now screening at the Indian Film Festival Of Los Angeles, is one such film.
Nocturnal Burger is screening at Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles
The story unfolds over the course of one night at a dysfunctional police station in Mumbai. This is when a visibly distraught yet unyielding Simi (Millo Sunka) comes to the authorities to lodge a complaint. She brings along a 13-year old girl, Minu (Bebo Madiwal), and a 30-year-old school teacher Sanu (Somnath Mondal). Simi is adamant on filing a case against Sanu who was forcing upon the minor in a moving auto rickshaw during the early hours of that night. But as she begins to narrate what she witnessed to a local male cop (Shrikant Yadav) and his junior female constable (Trupti Khamkar), the deteriorating indifference of the largely patriarchal society begins to crack in.
As the different point of views emerge, the movie permeates into a story that actively uncovers the growing passivity of the society. Mind you, it's not just the systemic apathy that Maya is interested in exploring. Nor do we ever get to see what exactly transpired in the autorickshaw. In looking away from the assault, the makers turn their gaze on the indelible repercussions that don't take long to haunt the characters.
When Minu's parents are called to accompany her in providing the statement, she barely responds. It's through the hypnotically ethereal sequences that we see play in her head that makes a case for how minimal her wants from life are. Maya doesn't have to speak for us to know how she's too naive to process the sensibilities of the questions people around her are asking. It's the crashing down of these minimal desires of exploration that bring to fruition the central themes of the film.
Harshveer Oberoi's evocative camerawork tells an entire backstory of the dimly lit police station. A space that's grown immune to such instances of trauma – most of which get burdened under the casual misogyny and uncompromising truths of our society. An instance where the camera pans out on the faces of a group of transgender women sitting by the corner works supremely well because we watch it through Minu. Their unspoken ostracization is perhaps the only thing she relates with. The fact that she doesn't know of these sensibilities only makes the reality even more tragic.
These stylistic and narrative choices keep “Nocturnal Burger” away from exploiting the very subject it centers on. The command over the visual grammar deflects the privileged gaze it settles on. When the hauntingly ambiguous conclusion arrives, it's permeated by a mist of aloofness. But it's never at the cost of exploiting the viewer's emotions, as we know of the reality on ground. How do you exploit reality when you can present with a kind of gaze that evokes empathy in a world that's growing all the more apathetic?
