Dug Dug is a Sharp Satire of a Nation on the Verge of a Mental Breakdown |
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Ritwik Pareek’s Dug Dug is quite the tease. In a gloriously meditative opening sequence, a visibly inebriated man steps out of a liquor shop with a ‘quarter’ in one hand, and a beedi in another. He rides into a dark highway on a luna (a two-wheeler), zigzagging with abandon. SUVs, trucks and buses whiz past him from either side of the road. A car advises the man to stick to one corner of the highway, which he promptly rebuffs with profanities.
The foreboding begins as the drunk man struggles to stay awake on his two-wheeler, risking his own life and others. He seems to know where he’s headed, suggesting he’s done this many times before. Watching this opening stretch, felt like seeing a nation coasting through a lonely, dark road.
Having premiered as an official selection at the 2021 Toronto International film festival, Pareek’s film too has been a lonely dark road, before being excavated by executive producers: Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Vasan Bala and Nikkhil Advani. Having seen it now, I’m not surprised there isn’t much appetite for Pareek’s film in the market.
After all, it’s an indictment of superstition, monetisation of faith and the cynical powers behind it. If the film might have felt like a sardonic portrait of a future we’re headed........