I.D. (2012)
Review of I.D. (2012), directed by Kamal K. M.
I was crawling through MUBI, looking for movies to watch, when I stumbled upon this one. I’m very impressed by the sheer number of Indian films that are on MUBI—I think that’s why I’ve been liking that subscription much more than my Criterion one, plus the fact that their curation feels much more globally focused and switches out more often. All in all, really loving MUBI so far. But I.D. interested me because of how simple it seemed.
Set in Mumbai, a student is horrified when a painter comes to her apartment to do his job and then dies. Because he is a Muslim Dalit, no one cares to claim his body and he has no identification.
It’s almost as he doesn’t exist in this system, which is a sad truth when looking at the actual situation going on in the slums of Mumbai. This college student randomly gets dragged into this, making it so much more intense than what it would be if it were an actual (or male) adult.
Let’s dive into this review.
A college student tries to identify a man who died while working in her apartment.
Charu is a student trying to finish up her studying for exams when a man comes to the door of her apartment. He says he is a painter and trying to get a job he was hired for done. Charu retreats back into her room, headphones in, wearily casting an eye on the man as she comes out to get food or water.
When it seems eerily silent at one moment, she steps out of her room, offers him water, and panics when he doesn’t respond. She finds his unconscious body near the wall he was painting, and, frantic, she rushes to a neighbor. The neighbor is an elderly woman who also resists trying to come, with the excuse that she’s waiting for her maid, and then Charu tries to get a security guard to do something. He, too, drags his feet and the elevator stalls before they get back up to the apartment.
She calls an ambulance, and this entire sequence of events is drawn out, like people are dragging their feet to help this dying man. Perhaps that was very intentional—only Charu, the one who doesn’t care who or what this man is—is trying to get any sort of help for him.
When the man dies in the hospital, there is no identification him. Charu ends up having to pay the expenses for him being there, and the ambulance, but she is promised she will be reimbursed by whomever this man’s family is. Instead of going to study, the rest of the movie is her falling into this spiral of trying to find someone who actually knows this man.
She even gets into a fight with her friend because he tells her to give up. I got this message here of how society tends to give up on people like these, because there was no attempt to try and identify this man. Even as she heads into the slums of Mumbai, there seems to be a resigned attitude towards these things happening.
Everyone seems to know him or doesn’t, and when they get frustrated with the series of events, they, too, give up. Only Charu is left searching, and the movie ends with her searching. She has no phone, no funds, and is in the slums of Mumbai alone. And then the movies ends on that note of misery and hopelessness, creating a situation that doesn’t have an end.
There’s quite a bit of critique slowly tucked in the corners of this movie as well. The police hinder Charu more than help her, while the only people that actually seem somewhat helpful are considered the bottom of society. I do think this is a very polarizing film, however, because I can see how many people will fail to consider the point. Most would find it fairly boring and drawn out, or would question with a Westernized lens why she wouldn’t just go to the cops and leave it at that.
Overall Thoughts
It’s an interesting movie that will give you a lot to think about. Is it entertaining? Not really. But that’s not really the point of this movie and I think it does a well done job conveying what it needs to convey.
Apparently the main actress wasn’t trained much in acting before this an this was one of her first roles, and I was impressed with her. Her technique will improve with time, but I’d imagine a lot worse than the performance she did. All in all, if you’re interested in the topic, watch it, otherwise you’d probably want to skip it.
