Pushan Kripalani’s superbly acted two-hander Chekhovian chamber piece resonates expressively with the barest of cinematic narrations; a married couple in their sixties have reached a crossroads that results in Rinku (Neena Gupta) telling her husband Raj (Rajit Kapoor) that she is leaving him. Kripalani attentively details the regrets and hostilities laid bare in the candid exchanges between husband and wife, conjuring an unpleasant tone of acrimony. Since this is a two-hander a lot of the emotional resonance rests on the shoulders of the two actors, Rajit Kapoor and Neena Gupta, who together, unveil a nakedness in their vivid interactions, often making us recognise a truth in their micro gestures, blurring the line between fictional constructions and real, personal histories. Kapoor and Gupta are a tour de force. One can sense an intimacy here between the actors borne out of a close improvisatory collaboration between the actors and director. As Raj begins to realise that Rinku has made up her mind and will inevitably leave him, their punitive exchanges dig up past memories that in the case of Rinku catalogue historic tales of neglect, pain, isolation and a life unfulfilled.
While the story never becomes about who has suffered the most, never choosing to present the victim in the relationship as solely Rinku, Kripalani is concerned much more with the impossible task of trying to capture the way people fail to communicate the essence of their frustrations, forlornly reduced to an interminable state of mental torment. Such anxieties are compounded by various societal and cultural determinants surfacing angrily in Raj’s chauvinistic mentality. Rinku’s longing to experience what it is to be ‘free’ and her resentment of Raj’s altruistic whims also points to an unbearable compromise, which they have learned to live with over the years, a lie made up of many others. Yet Raj needs Rinku for companionship because he sees the loneliness that old age inflicts. Their sadness is not tragic but resolutely melancholic realised visually in the placid imagery of the mountainous sceneries and more significantly the house, which Raj has built for Rinku, an immaterial expression of misguided affection that harbours a dreaded paralysis. What Kripalani captures so astutely is the site of separation, and the psychological crises it produces, inserting timely, underused fades to black to organise the separation as one made up of uninhibited interruptions. The Threshold is anchored by two exceptional performances; demonstrating mastery in magnifying the minutiae of martial malcontent.
The distribution-exhibition picture for Indian independent cinema in the UK is a miserable one, beset by monopoly and ignorance, and while The Threshold is yet another dazzling Indian indie film that could easily succeed with art-house film audiences, a cinematic abyss has opened up in the UK that has effectively marginalised many notable Indian independent films of the last five years. Masaan, the most coveted Indian indie film of the year, was not released in UK cinemas, and this was a film that won acclaim and awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Since the traditional distribution-exhibition paradigm is perpetually broken and with the DVD market/industry in India effectively on its knees, a different, progressive model needs to be proposed and implemented if we are to see the greater circulation of so many of these films. Although the NFDC has spiritedly launched its own DVD label, there is a need for an independent home video label with a global reach that can work with Indian film producers at an early stage in helping to develop and procure a viable marketing strategy for independent Indian films to be distributed either digitally or on the DVD/Blu-ray format. The Threshold is certainly one of the best films of the year but I am increasingly concerned about Indian independent cinema in the UK not getting the recognition it deserves.
