Uljhan review: A couple wrestles with an ethical dilemma in this thoughtful, compelling drama

How much responsibility would you accept if you happened to grievously injure another individual? The quiet drama Uljhan, also known as The Knot, looks at the far-reaching effects of one event that ripple out and entangle lives in the process.

The Mathurs — Shirish (Vikas Kumar) and Geeta (Saloni Batra) — seem to have it all. While returning home one night after celebrating her birthday, Geeta takes the wheel from Shirish who has had a little to drink. As they converse, a distracted Geeta fails to notice a rickshaw puller, Kali, in the middle of the road.

The couple reacts differently to the accident, which leaves Kali with an injured leg. While Geeta wants to help, her husband wants to leave it behind. Somehow, they drop off him at the local government hospital, with some money. But that’s not the last they see of him.

Shirish and Geeta are at a critical juncture in their relationship. After a miscarriage, Geeta is in the early stage of pregnancy and has been advised not to take any stress. Meanwhile, Shirish is thinking big for the future, wanting to expand the company internationally, while aiming to move in to a new plot he wants to purchase.

He is trying to balance his father-in-law’s legacy with his own ambitions for the company and is finding it a tough act to follow. While Shirish is eager to please those in authority above him, he has a quick temper when he believes he has been wronged.

Kali’s brother Manoj (Nehpal Gautam) makes contact with Geeta seeking financial assistance for his sibling. The entrance of Manoj in their lives adds further friction to the couple's relationship as husband and wife each keep secrets from another.

From there on, the tension continues to build up until the final confrontation where the cards are all out on the table, and each party believes itself to have been wronged. As the dominoes start falling tragedy seems imminent.

Written and directed by Ashish Pant, Uljhan is interested in the ethical dilemma of the aftermath of an accident, and how the Mathurs address it. From the beginning, Shirish is the one who wants to distance himself from the mishap while Geeta's guilt doesn't allow her to.

Most Indian films don’t deal with the after-effects of a traumatic incident, as the characters are soon presented with other problems, but Uljhan examines not just issues of liability and remorse, but also the more weighty ones of privilege, caste and equality.

While the Mathurs are seemingly happy together, their relationship has an undercurrent of inequality. The sheltered Geeta has a simplistic view of looking at the world, while Shirish, who hasn’t had things handed to him, is constantly hustling.

Compared to them, the simple Manoj has come to accept the many injustices life has thrown at him, by virtue of birth, but is principled when it matters most. Yet his fate is intertwined deeply with theirs, to his detriment.

Pant doesn’t rush through the narrative and allows the story to just unfold quietly and with great impact. Using long takes and unusual angles to frame the scene, he and cinematographer Pawel Kacprzak change the way we view the characters.

When the camera revolves around Geeta the first time Shirish and Manoj converse, we hear every word but it’s Geeta’s reactions that matter in this particular sequence. Editor Vibhav Nigam and sound designer Luigi Porto too influence the way a scene is presented, by incorporating different takes and sounds that take centre stage.

As the three key characters, Vikas Kumar, Saloni Batra and Nehpal Gautam anchor the film, each bringing out a vulnerability. Even when they falter, there is something real and humane in their actions.

Kumar, particularly, balances out Shirish’s conflicting emotions well as he tackles crisis after crisis. Batra is also effective as the softer, caring Geeta who just wants to do the right thing.

Unlike other films that would amp the melodrama surrounding the incident, Uljhan is interested in the human impact of this calamity and that is where it succeeds.

Uljhan is now playing at the 10th Dharamshala International Film Festival.