The
unspoken
subject
of
Mithya
is
violence,
and
the
big
zinger
here
is
our
recognition
that
the
movie
is
showing
us
the
makings
of
a
juvenile
delinquent
—
perhaps
the
finest
since
Truffaut
unleashed
his
Antoine
Doinel,
applauds
Sreehari
Nair.
Sumanth
Bhat’s
Mithya
starts
out
as
the
story
of
a
grieving
child,
but
its
range
of
meaning
is
so
imaginatively
fresh
that
it
reveals
a
new
vision
of
human
experience.
Mithun,
the
11
year
old
at
the
centre
of
Bhat’s
movie,
has
lost
his
parents
in
a
twin
tragedy.
The
boy,
however,
is
determined
not
to
be
a
whining
calf.
If
anything,
the
status
of
an
orphan
has
refocused
him
—
he’s
now
more
alert
than
ever.
Though
he
rarely
speaks,
Mithun’s
intelligence
is
there
for
us
to
read,
as
are
the
questions
bubbling
up
inside
him.
We
are
with
him
when
he
races
the
elements
and
with
him
through
his
fleeting
ecstasies.
When
asked
to
smile,
his
lips
twist
into
a
swoosh-like
formation;
and
even
this
convulsive
movement
strikes
us
as
an
attempt
to
communicate.
Athish
Shetty,
who
plays
Mithun,
never
leaves
the
screen,
and
filling
it
with
his
special
brand
of
spontaneous
radiance,
he
ends
up
giving
one
of
Indian
cinema’s
most
transparent
performances.
There
are
more
than
a
few
square
conventions
being
dumped
here,
and
it
helps
that
the
terms
of
the
movie
are
laid
out
in
its
initial
scenes.
Though
we
go
in
expecting
a
cherub-victim,
Mithun
is
closer
in
temperament
to
a
Dickensian
pauper-prince
whose
wits
become
sharpened
when
his
illusions
are
destroyed.
This
is
a
picaresque
hero
called
on
to
play
a
tragic
part
at
a
blithe
young
age,
a
Hamlet
without
words.
He’s
also
a
proud
Mumbaikar
who
has
been
grafted
into
Udupi,
and
the
script
rather
audaciously
allows
him
his
feelings
of
snobbishness,
not
to
mention
his
roguish
appeal
and
sly
individualism.
Working
with
Cinematographer
Udit
Khurana,
Sumanth
Bhat
photographs
Mithun
so
that
we
can
freely
observe
his
strategies.
Quick
of
eye
and
deft
of
hand,
this
orphan
knows
the
time-tested
art
of
putting
on
a
distracted
face
before
casually
filching
something.
Not
only
is
he
not
crying
out
for
our
sympathy,
Mithun
can
barely
stand
the
kindness
of
others;
and
his
benefactors
include
a
bullying
bunch
of
relatives
from
his
father’s
side,
some
fumbling
law-keepers,
and
an
aunt
and
an
uncle
who
have
taken
on
the
risk
of
‘informally’
adopting
him.
When
a
tussle
breaks
out
for
the
ownership
of
the
orphan,
the
movie
expands
in
scope
to
give
us
unexpected
character
notations:
We
see
that
the
aunt
is
attractive
in
a
way
that
women
with
beak-shaped
noses
sometimes
tend
to
be,
and
we
see
that
the
uncle’s
shiny
pate
is
actually
a
wisdom
centre.
As
these
adults
discuss
the
cause
of
his
parents’
death
(Suicide?
Murder?),
the
boy
stations
himself
outside
doors
and
inside
alcoves,
overhearing
theories,
amassing
facts,
details,
hearsays.
We
see
him
learning,
course-correcting,
deliberating,
we
see
him
licking
his
wounds,
growing
up
a
little.
We
are
held
in
a
daze
by
how
non-schematic
the
storytelling
is,
and
Udit
Khurana’s
evocation
of
Udupi
is
an
endorsement
of
the
movie’s
feeling
tone.
This
is
an
Udupi
of
brown
quarries
giving
way
to
spurts
of
green,
a
mirage
of
nature,
modernity,
and
greed.
When
it
rains
in
Udupi,
it
feels
like
a
retreat
to
an
innocent
past,
this
sudden
shift
of
perspective
mirroring
Mithun’s
confusions,
and
it
is
as
though
the
mildly
howling
wind,
the
hesitant
puddles,
and
the
wet
pepper
trees
are
conspiring
to
show
us
the
boy’s
state
of
mind.
The
look
of
the
movie,
the
nimble-footed
cast
and
above
all,
Sumanth
Bhat’s
tough-minded
humanism
give
Mithya
an
evanescent
quality.
Together,
they
turn
this
into
a
tale
of
‘adolescence,
interrupted’.
Let
me
not
reel
in
the
cannons:
The
allusion
to
the
much-acclaimed
Netflix
show
is
intentional,
for
Mithya
is
the
greater
work.
Be
forewarned
that
we
are
not
dealing
with
sacred
entertainment
here,
the
kind
that
feasts
on
accumulated
citations
and
secretes
olive
branches.
In
fact,
it’s
nothing
like
those
made-for-film-festival
thingies
that
try
to
compensate
for
their
lack
of
dramatic
stakes
by
treating
you
to
pretty
visuals
and
solemn
faces.
What
Sumanth
Bhat
and
his
team
have
served
up
is
‘great
drama’.
But
the
difference
between
aestheticised
soap
operas
such
as
Ullozhukku
and
this
one
is
that
this
is
great
drama
as
Strindberg
and
Renoir
meant
it
to
be.
Though
its
emotional
draw
is
lucid
enough
(who
among
us
hasn’t
imagined
the
death
of
one
or
both
of
our
parents,
and
shuddered
at
that
thought?),
Mithya
has
no
easy
villains
and
it
illuminates
the
humanity
of
its
characters
rather
than
diminishes
it.
Prakash
Thuminad
plays
the
boy’s
rapidly
balding
uncle,
while
Roopa
Varkady
plays
the
emotionally
confused
aunt,
and
we
see
the
husband
and
wife
differently
with
each
passing
frame.
In
the
beginning,
they
come
across
as
a
couple
of
eager
beavers
who
are
too
eager
to
be
kind.
By
the
end,
they
help
the
boy
by
asserting
more
facets
of
their
own
personalities.
A
tiny
detail
of
his
being
a
rickshaw
driver
is
unloaded
upon
us
in
such
a
feathery
manner
that
it
gives
him
a
special
shade
we
may
not
be
prepared
for.
To
show
her
threading
eyebrows
just
seconds
before
the
boy
bursts
into
her
salon
and
demands
his
bicycle
is
to
give
her
a
dignity
independent
of
the
main
narrative.
Though
this
is
Mithun’s
story,
Bhat
brings
the
people
surrounding
him
into
focus
so
unassumingly
that
it’s
almost
as
if
we
had
figured
them
out
by
ourselves.
Even
their
moments
of
clumsiness
function
like
windows
into
their
souls,
their
wiggly,
jittery
souls.
As
a
police
officer
tries
to
explain
the
complexities
of
the
law
to
the
two
sparring
families,
he
gropes
for
an
exact
clause
from
the
penal
code
to
make
his
case.
A
relative
who
goes
too
far
when
speaking
ill
about
Mithun’s
mother
gets
his
face
daubed
with
a
splash
of
the
creamiest-looking
falooda.
When
it
comes
to
expounding
character,
Sumanth
Bhat
and
Udit
Khurana
know
the
value
of
small
surprises.
Those
few
extra
beats
of
lingering
on
the
aunt’s
smile
speak
to
the
purity
of
her
affections.
The
uncle’s
drunken
frustration
in
a
sequence
hits
you
harder
because
it’s
captured
with
his
back
to
the
camera.
I
just
loved
Prakash
Thuminad
and
Roopa
Varkady
in
their
respective
roles,
and
I
loved
the
scenes
of
this
miserable
couple
struggling
to
make
Mithun
feel
at
home.
And
as
they
strive
to
establish
a
connection
with
the
orphan,
we
come
to
understand
their
domestic
chemistry
better.
The
persona
of
the
uncle
benefits
immensely
from
Thuminad’s
world-weary
look
—
it’s
a
look
one
associates
with
autodidacts
and
gamblers,
with
pitchmen
who
are
also
marvellous
conmen,
a
look
more
suited
to
engravings
than
oil
paintings.
With
Thuminad
in
the
role,
it
feels
plausible
that
the
uncle
would
brush
off
his
wife’s
pleas
to
counsel
the
thieving
boy.
It
feels
equally
plausible
that,
unbeknownst
to
her,
he
would
choose
a
private
moment
with
the
boy
and
put
the
screws
on
him.
This
is
a
movie
that
sees
the
goodness
and
cunning
of
its
characters
as
part
of
the
same
human
continuum;
and
though
its
generous
eye
would
have
been
enough
of
a
coup,
Mithya
is
also
a
brave
movie.
You
need
the
confidence
of
genius
to
base
your
entire
story
around
an
11
year
old
experiencing
a
series
of
epiphanies.
And
there’s
something
of
the
artist’s
gall
in
the
way
Sumanth
Bhat
takes
us
staggeringly
close
to
the
orphan’s
sorrow
but
never
once
privileges
his
condition.
By
and
by
it
dawns
on
you,
the
uncomfortable
truth:
The
protagonist
of
Mithya
is
his
own
adversary.
On
those
rare
occasions
when
the
boy
(he
looks
like
a
young
Gulshan
Devaiah)
bares
his
full
set
of
teeth
and
laughs
heartily,
we
get
a
sense
of
the
mischief-maker
who
has
been
put
in
abeyance.
And
we
can
intuit
that
it’s
his
natural
exuberance
and
rebellious
streak
that’s
slowly
being
modified
into
violence.
Yes,
the
unspoken
subject
of
Mithya
is
violence,
and
the
big
zinger
here
is
our
recognition
that
the
movie
is
showing
us
the
makings
of
a
juvenile
delinquent
—
perhaps
the
finest
since
Truffaut
unleashed
his
Antoine
Doinel.
I
don’t
know
about
you,
but
I
remember
the
scenes
of
little
Antoine
being
slapped
in
400
Blows
more
vividly
than
all
the
Mexican
standoffs
that
cinema
has
had
to
offer
me.
Those
slaps
are
so
sudden
and
reverberant
that
they
intensify
our
feelings,
and
we
realise
that
we
don’t
have
the
emotional
resources
to
deal
with
the
experience.
The
violence
in
Mithya
is
of
this
very
kind;
it’s
violence
that
erupts
from
the
looseness
and
texture
of
life,
the
sort
of
violence
where
a
pinprick
feels
more
bruising
than
a
stab
in
the
ribs.
When
you
filter
a
hard-edged
aesthetic
through
the
consciousness
of
a
child,
you
are
pretty
much
risking
sacrilege;
and
yet
it
is
this
disruptive
approach
that
informs
the
movie’s
unique
visual
style.
Sumanth
Bhat
and
his
elves
have
thought
up
a
world
that
seems
wondrous
and
full
of
possibilities
one
moment,
and
the
next
moment,
congenitally
dangerous.
A
world
where
a
lazy
conversation
patiently
waits
for
its
tipping
point
even
as
a
forest
fire
builds
up
in
the
background.
A
world
where
a
beautiful
three
year
old,
deep
in
the
pleasures
of
her
first
swim,
spits
laughter
and
makes
whoopee,
even
as
the
river
around
her
becomes
a
mysterious
and
dark
place.
I
don’t
recall
seeing
camerawork
of
this
quality
in
an
Indian
movie
anytime
recently;
it’s
quite
literally
an
ode
to
‘sweatless
precision’.
And
the
lines
similarly
achieve
a
kind
of
poetry
while
always
sounding
easy-come,
easy-go,
with
everyday
Kannada
meeting
Hindi
and
English
words
at
random
corners
and
attaining
a
dramatic
logic
totally
unexpected.
(I
didn’t
need
subtitles
after
a
while).
Ordinarily,
a
plot
like
this
one
would
have
been
turned
into
a
cautionary
tale,
which
is
the
movie
director’s
version
of
‘playing
the
schoolmarm’.
On
the
other
hand,
what
comes
screaming
out
of
Mithya,
what’s
evident
in
its
every
aspect,
is
Sumanth
Bhat’s
love
of
children.
The
sure
touch
that
marks
his
filmmaking
doesn’t
conflict
with
his
complete
acceptance
of
childhood
pursuits.
I
think
it’s
a
sign
of
his
artistry
that
Bhat
never
questions
the
usefulness
of
such
pursuits.
He
understands
that
to
an
11
year
old,
the
sound
of
leaves
being
burst
on
a
palm
or
the
sight
of
pebbles
bouncing
on
water
has
the
same
effect
as
exquisite
music.
Mithya
too
aims
for
a
kind
of
musicality
and
achieves
it,
which
in
the
case
of
the
movie
is
a
fine
sense
of
proportion
about
its
people
and
their
entwining
destinies.
A
tragedy
that
befalls
a
child
becomes
the
tragedy
of
an
entire
ecosystem.
And
instead
of
softening
its
orphan,
the
movie
takes
us
deeper
into
his
unresolved
grief
and
ever
deeper
into
his
shady
instincts.
In
the
final
scene,
when
Mithun
braces
himself
to
perform
an
unspeakable
act
of
cruelty,
you
can
see
Athish
Shetty’s
face
rotting
as
evil
thoughts
pass
by
it.
That
scene
stops
your
heart.
And
when
the
boy
goes
to
the
pits
of
his
self-confined
hell
and
comes
back,
you
feel
purified,
as
though
the
last
strain
of
violence
has
been
drained
out
of
you.
A
cinema
culture
that
lives
on
camera
pyrotechnics
and
thunderous
dialogues,
in
which
bloodletting
is
considered
the
norm
for
social
revolutions
and
beheading
the
baseline
for
establishing
savagery,
a
cinema
culture
like
that
forces
us
to
think
and
respond
mechanically.
We
needed
something
this
quiet
and
observant
to
jolt
us
back
into
coherence.
