Signing you in

Shape of Momo movie review: Under its deceptively calm surface, there’s a lot going on in Tribeny Rai’s assured debut Shape of Momo. Based on Rai’s own experiences, the film assimilates several themes– the search for self, the definition of home, gender roles, family ties– in a film which has the courage to back a lead character who refuses to confirm, or to be likeable.

While the other themes are familiar, the creation of Bishnu– stubborn and soft at the same time– breaks free from the good-girl trap that most female characters find themselves confined in, in our mainstream cinema. Only recently have we had characters (Varsha Bharath’s ‘Bad Girl’) that have broken free, and in turn, allowed the films to chart unexplored territories.

Played by Gaumaya Gurung, who bears a startling resemblance to the director, Bishnu is the kind of girl whose headstrong behaviour drives her mother (Pashupati Rai) and her visiting pregnant sister (Shyama Shree Thapa) up the wall. Having returned from Delhi, where one of her poems in ‘English’ has been published, no less, in a newspaper, Bishnu will now be matched suitably, get married, and make perfectly shaped momos, the acme of all accomplishment.

Wait. Scratch that. Bishnu will have nothing to do with shapely momos, even if that means turning her back on her personable suitor (Rahul Mukhiya). She will, instead, day dream by a running stream, curled up like a human momo, be vocal about wanting to turn their large home nestled in a meadow into a homestay (there’s a snarky line about ‘picturesque homestays’ which makes you smile), and lift a heavy gas cylinder by herself, much to her mother’s horror. It’s bad enough that the father, the strong male protector, is no more; Bishnu, striding about in shapeless fleece jackets and pants, is beyond.

An interesting thread is raised, as the insider-outsider debate rages in the North-East, when a working-class family unit who has lived in their outhouse is asked to leave: a woman whose husband is away earning money for the family, taking care of a sick daughter, and a mutinous teenage son who resents Bishnu’s high-handed ways, and refuses to be mollified by a gift of apples. They have gone to Nepal, we are told. A break-in, never explained, becomes enough reason for the local cops to roll up a group of men, who may or may not have had anything to do with it. While never making it explicit, the film taps into the rise of suspicion and distrust, mirroring current political realities, among people who’ve lived peaceably all these years.

The inclusion of a grandmother makes it a family of four women, who feel the absence of men in different ways: the grandma, old and bedridden but still feisty, waiting for her Dubai-based son, who thinks a new Iphone is a good enough replacement for his presence; the mother speaking of her dead husband who would tell off pesky unknown callers; the sister having to take permission for every small thing in her marital home, with the husband presumably happier being his mamma’s boy, and Bishnu herself who likes the man willing to give her space, but who is not acceptable should he turn into an arbiter of the shape of her momos.

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The fact that he could perhaps help her in making those delectable edibles doesn’t occur to her, because the film refuses to box her in. That her mother understands Bishnu’s reluctance to give into the relentless domesticity of perfectly shaped momos is even more noteworthy, in a film full of telling strokes and real performances, with only a few obvious strands. And that’s clearly a scripting triumph: Rai has co-written the film with Kislay (the director of the terrific ‘Aise Hee’), creating a gentle, felt tapestry of dreams and desires.

Shape of Momo movie cast: Gaumaya Gurung, Shyama Shree Sherpa, Pashupati Rai, Rahul Mukhia, Bhanu Maya Rai Shape of Momo movie director: Tribeny Rai Shape of Momo movie rating: Three and a half stars

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