The Documentary Film Festival has always allowed students to reflect on and appreciate documentaries as a compelling medium. It has always striven to expose students to a diverse range of perspectives. In its 10th edition, Khushboo Ranka’s An Insignificant Man was no exception.
As the credits rolled, the entire room was filled with applause and cheers from the students reacting to the film’s cathartic climax. I was reminded of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s poignant words, “Governments come and governments go; political parties will form and dissolve; but the country and its democracy should remain.” My heart was filled with countless questions in retrospect about the political climate of the nation as I absorbed and processed the film.
This was a political documentary revolving around the emergence of Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party. A well-constructed docu-drama, almost thrilling at times, the film was immersive and grasped the viewer’s attention to the fullest. Creating suspense and keeping the audience on edge, the film follows the gradual rise of the AAP to power in the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections.
Politics is dramatic, and one can never predict what twists and turns it could take; it is complex. The film's strength lies solely in the occurrence of events rather than its craft; it’s opportunistic. Kejriwal is introduced as an ordinary man with a full-sleeve cotton shirt paired with trousers, often travelling in a metro or addressing people’s issues at his home office, which becomes his identity.
Throughout the film, Kejriwal is depicted as a grand figure who is on a journey to fundamentally change the politics of Delhi. The soft, heroic score in the background makes him seem innocent, yet brave. The extreme close-up and tracking shots blend well with the film, so much so that the camera becomes a part of the journey instead of being voyeuristic.
In narrative terms, the build-up paired with subtle ups and downs helps the ending, resulting in a catharsis. While it was a clean sweep for Kejriwal, the film probably would have left a similar, sizable impact on the audience.
The film struggles to remain unbiased, and in many instances can seem like promotional material for the AAP. The viewers are aware of the camera’s presence, which results in the film being emotionally immersive. When asked about the process of filmmaking, Khushboo Ranka said, ‘’Documentary allows one to play with the medium, and therefore some decisions were taken with the flow of the film, and we figured out what worked and what didn’t as most of the decisions were intuitive’’. She added, “Most of the narrative and technical decisions were taken on the editing table, as editing plays a heavy role in documentary style filmmaking; they were not editing it while filming but rather collected the clips and then went ahead with the editing process.”
Watching this film in 2024 felt ironic — today’s AAP is no longer the same, making you question the construct of the polity. What has happened to the roots and the idealism of the AAP? Are those issues still relevant today? What happened to the man who entered politics to fight systemic corruption and bureaucracy?
Has Kejriwal ended up embracing the very system that he was critiquing? It is also worth asking about the power that the opposition held in our country back then, and still holds now. Politicians in India have never failed to exploit people’s trust or emotions for power, and this is the brutal reality of this country. These questions are summarily relevant, eight years on.
Comments