Rima Das is one of this century’s most remarkable indie-filmmaker stories from India. Essentially a one-woman crew, she released her debut feature Village Rockstars in 2018. To write, direct, produce, and do the cinematography and editing is what authorial command of a vision is really about—especially when you come from an area of India (Assam in the Northeast) that does not have the sort of cinema/industry foundation of major cities like Mumbai, Calcutta, Hyderabad, or Chennai. Its popularity and eventual inclusion at the Toronto Film Festival was a huge success story, and Das’s reputation was solidified as one of the world’s most resourceful directors. She was back for her third TIFF (sophomore feature Bulbul Can Sing also appeared to great reviews) with Tora’s Husband; it pains me to say this where I was left scratching my head.
Tora’s Husband doesn’t accomplish much different in style compared to her previous output. She’s very committed to the almost documentary-like approach, including sequences of kids just being kids, various people on the street singing and performing whatever they would normally perform. But this is intertwined in a narrative about a husband and father, Abhay Das (but everyone calls him “Jaan”), whose restaurant comes under hard times from COVID-19. Jaan is prone to drinking and it gets worse—not only because of the economic hardships, but also social ones where his friendly and gregarious demeanor that help bring in customers is curbed by isolation.
Naturalistic performances from the main cast are charming but often stray into tedious, comatose scenes that seem thrown in sans order. There is an inherent uniqueness in Das’ mixture of punchy narrative sequences (e.g. Jaan scolding two customers for treating his workers improperly) along with letting her characters just be themselves in front of the camera (e.g. Jaan’s two children fooling around during dinner time). But for the most part she’s satisfied with having us observe various daily ongoings of her characters that don’t stick out, further made frustrating by the runtime: while Das’s previous two movies were both under 100 minutes, this one stretches to beyond two-and-a-half hours.
What grander vision exists in this movie is in the slow, methodical, and almost unnoticeable—like fingernails growing—vision of COVID affecting Jann and his business. Das’ aim to portray this economic impact seeping into a man and then to his family and community is commendable in its consistent patience, suggesting a Jeanne Dielman-like methodical descent into darkness. But the impact of COVID gets lost in Tora’s meandering style. Any impact on Jaan’s life manifests through his drinking habit in disjointed segments and growing irritability, as well as his discussions with his employees about profits. These sequences aren’t well-edited or paced, never creating a conscious continuation or flow of the central character’s compiling problems.
What ultimately stops Tora’s Husband from being a compelling movie is that it’s unwieldy in the hands of a filmmaker whose style is conducive to simple, smaller work—it’s a voluminous movie that lacks mass. Its character study, while bolstered by naturalistic performances, fails to engage beyond the charms of naturalism, which wear off by about the 90-minute mark. Rima Das’ reputation is an underdog story that took the Indian cinema world by storm, but once the novelty of that feel-good authenticity wears off, questions must be asked—such as if there a ceiling to her abilities. Maybe she can break through it with the next one.
Tora’s Husband premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.