Suparna Thombare
Mumbai, 02 Nov 2017 16:43 IST
Updated: 08 Nov 2017 1:41 IST
Director Rakhee Sandilya's film is also a commentary on the troubles of modern-day parenting.
Shot in documentary style, with candid camerawork by Vikram Amladi, realistic screenplay and conversational dialogues (by Rakhee Sandilya, Rajeev Upadhyay and Rahul Ramchandani), Ribbon looks at the slow and steady unravelling of the knot called the modern-day urban marriage.
An unexpected pregnancy comes as a jolt to working couple Sahana (Kalki Koechlin) and Karan Mehra (Sumit Vyas) as it shakes up their plan to achieve financial and emotional security. Cut to them viewing their baby as it grows in Sahana's womb and before we know it daddy is changing nappies and mummy is pumping breast milk into a bottle for her little one as she heads back to work.
Director Sandilya makes you a witness and gets you completely involved in the life of this couple that is trying to navigate the day-to-day challenges that come with raising a child in an urban environment as a working couple.
Sandilya taps into various aspects of the process. Sahana's three-month maternity leave not only turns out to be unpaid, but she is also demoted, giving a big setback to her career. A mother is instantly viewed as someone who cannot live up to the pressures and demands of a corporate workplace.
The depiction of child care in cities is very realistic as Sahana, with no family support system, has to entrust her child to a nanny while constantly worrying about whether the child is in good hands, even as she tries to prove her worth all over again at work.
While Sahana deals with the issues of being a working mother, hubby Karan silently deals with the financial and emotional stress even as he tries to be a supportive husband.
While Ribbon is a realistic and disturbing commentary on the perils of parenting in an urban environment, it also, perhaps subconsciously, throws light on the lack of infrastructure to support our modern lifestyle. Can our system not provide job security to a working mother? Why don't we have creches at the workplace? Why are some companies still allowed to bypass the paid maternity leave rule? Why are child abuse laws not stricter? Why is there no central committee for child sexual abuse in school? Why aren't children protected better from predators?
Sandilya tries to pack in a lot of different issues, moving swiftly through the life of the couple as their child grows up.
Our relationships are always untying like the ribbon knot: Director Rakhee Sandilya
The characters feel more like token urban representatives and that, perhaps, is also the intention — to make them relevant through their ordinariness. But their circumstances and the plot points assume a lot more importance than their development and growth, especially in the much darker second half. This is especially true of Karan Mehra.
While Sumeet Vyas plays the part of a simple and understanding husband with sincerity, his character lacks dimensions.
Not a quirky, funny person: Sumeet Vyas on the modern man in Ribbon
Koechlin is all Sahana, and brilliantly so. Her struggle and pain penetrate you. The actress beautifully creates a certain mindset, body language and manner of speaking for her character, and sticks to it throughout. Many working mothers will be able to see themselves in her.
Sandilya chucks a cinematic view with the framing and shot-taking, and embraces a refreshing, almost home video-like, style. Ribbon is an interesting experiment, which is more in the web series mode than a feature film.