Entertainment and the Arts: Cinema: Strident Voice

India Today, February 1, 1999
Feb 1, 1999

HU TU TU
Strident Voice

Gulzar's Hu Tu Tu is an honest and overtly didactic statement on politics.

By Namrata Joshi

Sunil Shetty and Tabu in Hu Tu Tu Seventeen reels of Hu Tu Tu, evidently, do not seem enough for Gulzar. For the veteran director is in a mood to say a lot in his new film -- and loud and clear at that.

Based on one of his own short stories, the film is Gulzar's statement on the nation's pet hate -- politics. Hu Tu Tu is about the game politics plays with the life of an ordinary, close-knit family from Shewri village in Maharashtra. Panna (Tabu) sees her mother Malti Barve (Suhasini Mulay) transform from a schoolteacher to a chief minister. As Malti begins to enjoy the power that comes with politics, her ties with the family begin to disintegrate. Alienated, the impetuous Panna finds her soulmate in Aditya (Sunil Shetty in his first off-mainstream role), the equally disenchanted son of a corrupt industrialist (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). Giving a strident voice to their dilemmas is the Dalit street poet Bhau (Nana Patekar), a symbol of hope, principles and idealism.

Gulzar doesn't spell out the specific instances of corruption. He doesn't need to. The hollowness of Panna's family itself becomes a metaphor for the decadent state. As Panna says, "I can feel the corruption flowing in my blood." The film is also about the rootlessness of today's youth -- "a generation that asks a lot of questions but gets no answers in return". There are shades of Mere Apne, Aandhi and Maachis here. Only the vision gets incredibly sad and dark. With Hu Tu Tu Gulzar turns ballistic, taking on politics and corruption head-on. The film is scathing and unrelenting in its critique and has very little of Gulzar's soothing brand of romance.

The film meanders, scenes take their own time to unfold. It also moves back and forth in time, the narrative punctuated with long sequences, incessant conversations and stylised theatrical interludes. All this for an overtly didactic cause. The use of Patekar as a sutradhar falls squarely within the activist street theatre tradition. Even the music, composed by Vishal, is used to make a comment than to hit the Top 10 on the pop charts.

Patekar, with his manic energy, is perfectly cast as the eccentric sutradhar. But the most mesmerising and eloquent presence is Tabu's. The entire film unfolds through her expressive eyes.

Hu Tu Tu may well be Gulzar's political manifesto. The brutally honest and uncompromising statement doesn't make it easy for even the audience or the box office. And the violent end is a call for revolution. It's as if the director is asking for this world to end. So that a new, and perhaps better world, can be born.

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