Stolen

Stolen

Stolen
Venice Film Festival

VERDICT: The rich/poor divide in India is staggeringly vivid in Karan Tejpal’s first feature ‘Stolen’, the desperate search for a stolen baby that is powered by exciting chases and the constant threat of violence.

Karan Tejpal makes a striking feature debut with Stolen, engaging audiences in the frightful, all-too-real situations that can arise in India over a minor misunderstanding with the police, which snowballs into full-fledged danger for two brothers.

Meanwhile, a poor tribal woman sleeping on a bench in the train station awakens to find her infant daughter gone. The intersection of these three characters explodes in a cross-country hunt for the stolen baby that astutely blends the excitement of action scenes with deeper social themes and, for one of the brothers, a coming to terms with the need to become personally involved in a stranger’s problems.

The screenplay also walks a fine line in exposing police corruption and incompetence, in a story that requires their assistance to come out right in the end. Shot entirely in open countryside, surrounded by dramatic desert canyons and a handful of sleepy villages, the story has a strong unity of time and place that cranks up the tension of a reluctant police investigation into one of many snatched babies, almost none of whom are recovered and returned to their family.

In a deserted train station late at night, Gautam (Abhishek Banerjee) is impatiently waiting for his brother Raman (Shubham) to arrive for a family function. No one notices the hands of a baby-snatcher who whisks little Champa out of her sleeping mother’s arms. When Jhumpa (a moving Mia Maezler) awakens the child is long gone. She hysterically blames Raman (Shubham), who has picked up the baby’s fallen cap, but the police officer believes the middle-class boys.

But he still he holds them as “witnesses”. While Gautam essays an early bribe (repulsed) to get them released, Raman loses control and insists they search for the missing baby. Gautam’s late-model SUV is soon following the two cops on their motorcycle through a pitch-black night on ever lonelier roads. It gives the brothers plenty of time to bicker bitterly about what’s morally right and what’s practical – while Jhumpa writhes anxiously in the back seat.

Following a lead from a boy at the train station, they converge on a “cursed mansion” known for its opium and baby traffic. It is an authentically scary scene that ends in tragedy and further implicates the brothers in an affair that is rapidly spiraling out of control. Soon they are off again, this time running from the police, with Jhumpa as a secret passenger. They have a name and a location – an opium rehab center —  where the baby might have been taken.

The pace quickens further as dawn breaks and they stop to ask some villagers for directions. It’s a bad move because their car has been filmed and uploaded to social media, branding Jhumpa and the brothers as baby-snatchers. In a thrillingly lensed chase scene through the desert, a posse of locals on motorbikes attack the car with sticks, their fury implacable. Editor Shreyas Beltangdy does a fine job with this scene which goes on and on, never giving the trio a moment of rest as new villagers join the chase with shotguns.

The final sequence unfolds tensely in a peaceful village, where Gautam drags the injured Raman to precarious safety, while Jhumpa braves a gathering lynch mob to hunt for her child. The film’s desolating scenes of mob violence bring some shocking news stories into focus, fueled by the impotent rage of India’s poorest who see their children vanish and no authority coming to their aid.

Director: Karan Tejpal
Screenplay: Karan Tejpal, Agadbumb, Gaurav Dhingra
Cast: Abhishek Banerjee, Shubham, Mia Maelzer, Harish Khanna, Sahidur Rahaman  
Producer: Gaurav Dhingra
Cinematography: Isshaan Ghosh

Editing: Shreyas Beltangdy
Production design: Neeraj Kumar Singh
Costume design: Harsh Dhedia
Music: Arpad Bondy
Sound: Susmit Bob Nath
Production company: Jungle Book Studio

World Sales: Charades
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Orizzonti)
In Hindi, English, Marwari, Santali
90 minutes