Metroscape

April 3, 2000

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The Movie Review

Spilt Wide Open
Director: Dev Benegal
Cast: Rahul Bose, Laila Rouass, Farida H.Mulla

First the good news. Dev Benegal's second feature is compelling. More mature than English, August, it breaks new ground both in content and form. Benegal takes globalisation, consumerism, television, poverty and sex, and stirs it up in the seething cauldron of a millennium Mumbai. Here a man called Kut Price A.K.A. KP sells water to the poor and Evian to the rich, and a 10-year-old exchanges her body for a meal. When an expat (Rouass) hosts a TV show on which people confess their sexual secrets, viewers can't get enough.
Split Wide Open is an ambitious and original take and Benegal steers well part of the way. But the characters are always kept at a Brechtian distance and despite the overwhelming tragedy of the proceedings, it's hard to feel anything for them. Threads of the story aren't carried to their logical end. When KP brokers an independent deal, the water mafia break his bones and render him homeless. But when he cuts their chains off the taps, they're silent. Besides, Rahul Bose as KP mostly looks like a yuppie slumming it for the day. The resolute bleakness also gets a little tiresome. Still, Benegal started the independent film movement with English, August and now he takes the craft one step forward.

-Anupama Chopra

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