Satluj movie review: Satluj opens with a chilling sequence which sets the tone of the film. It is pitch dark, a jeep full of joshing cops stops, pulls out a few men, their hands tied behind their backs, and shoots them dead.

The casual cruelty that colours this shocking scene gives us, in a snapshot, the darkness that had engulfed Punjab in ’95, rolling over from the decades-long battle the state had waged against insurgency. Men, women, even children weren’t spared in this clean-up operation, which became a battle against ordinary citizens, who were rounded up and killed, their gutted bodies dumped in the river to be picked clean by hungry fish.

It’s in this atmosphere of dread that Jaswant Singh Khalra (Diljit Dosanjh) steps in, and steps up, first as just a concerned individual asking about a disappearance, going to the local thana for help, receiving nothing but threats, and warnings to stay away. And then, slowly and steadily becoming the fulcrum of the fight against the massive human rights violations happening under the iron-fist of the Punjab police.

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The film’s two hour forty three minutes is spent in a painstaking, meticulous stitching together of the personal and political: Khalra’s transition from an Amritsar bank manager to the saviour of hundreds of ‘disappeared’ persons, who takes their voice to sympathetic Sikh organisations in Canada in order to be heard by the world, takes its time, which in a few places makes the length felt, but stays completely believable.

It is Diljit Dosanjh’s performance as the real-life Khalra, a man of extraordinary courage and resilience who is celebrated as a martyr to the cause, that gives this film its strength. Whether he is helping his children get ready for school, being a steady partner for his concerned wife (Geetika Vidya Ohlyan), adding yet another morgue and crematorium to his search, as the numbers of the dead mount, finding legal support in a man (Badola) who remains by his side, and his persecution and torture by a group of complicit cops played by Kanwaljeet Singh and Suvinder Vicky: at each step of the film, half of which is spent in looking into his own disappearance, Dosanjh never takes a wrong step.

This is a film full of actors who look and sound authentic, never flubbing their accents, leaving an impact even in bit parts. The actors playing the less powerful men (Saurabh Sachdeva, amongst several others) in the pecking order, their conscience pricking them hard, are terrific. But the one who makes us shiver, exuding a calm, frightening menace, is Vicky: he never raises a voice or a hand, but leaves devastation in his wake.

Looking back in our polarised times is a fraught exercise, with too many people too quick to point fingers about intention and execution. Director Honey Trehan and his producers Ronnie Screwvala and Abhishek Chaubey as well as lead actor Diljit Dosanjh have waged a long, hard battle themselves to get this film out. It’s had to make its way through court hearings, and obdurate censors, who wanted more than a hundred cuts (127, to be exact). But the filmmakers stuck to their guns, and finally, the film is out just the way it was created. I’ve seen the film before, and I can confirm that the only change is in the name from Punjab 95 to the more generic Satluj.

But there’s nothing generic about the film. It is a powerful, moving account of a lone man holding up a candle to dispel darkness. Take a bow, Honey Trehan, and Team Satluj; this is a clear win for filmmakers who want to tell the story of an actual person, time and place, with unwavering conviction.

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Satluj movie cast: Diljit Dosanjh, Suvinder Vicky, Kanwaljeet, Arjun Rampal, Geetika Vidya Ohlyan, Varun Badola, Saurabh Sachdev, Nasser
Satluj movie director: Honey Trehan
Satluj movie rating: 3.5 stars





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