Kaagaz is an Indian Hindi Comedy Drama film directed by Satish Kaushik. It stars Pankaj Tripathi, M. Monal Gujjar, Mita Vashisht, Neha Chauhan, and Satish Kaushik in main roles. It was released on 7th January 2021 on Zee5.
Bharat Lal (Pankaj Tripathi), a resident of a small village in Khalilabad, Uttar Pradesh, is a bandmaster who is leading a happy life with his wife Rukmani (M. Monal Gujjar) and his children. Some people advise Bharat Lal to take a loan from the bank and expand his Band business but he ignores it. But when Bharat Lal's wife Rukmani advises him to take a loan from the bank to extend his work, Bharat Lal reaches the cooperative bank for a loan.
The bank manager says to bring the papers of his land to mortgage against the loan. When Bharat Lal reaches the lekhpal to take his ancestral land papers, it is learned that his uncle and cousins bribed the lekhpal to make some changes in the official papers, Bharat Lal has been declared dead and all his land is now in the name of his cousins. This changes the life of Bharat Lal and this horrific incident puts a heel peak to prove himself alive. He keeps writing letters from Lekhpal to Sarpanch, Chief Minister, Prime Minister, and the court. Advocate Sadhuram Kevat (Satish Kaushik) comes forward with the help of making Bharat Lal a goat but he is quite impressed by Bharat Lal's determination then decides to help him genuinely.
Bharat Lal adopts all kinds of tactics to prove himself alive. Even with Bharat Lal putting Mritak in front of his name, and then he forms Akhil Bhartiya Mritak Sangha and all the people of the entire state join him, who have been declared dead on paper. The business stops, the family leaves, the wife takes her children and stays at her maternal uncle's house. But Bharat Lal gets MLA Ashrafi Devi's (Mita Vashisht) help, while another MLA (Amar Upadhyay) is against him. Bharat Lal does not give up and after 18 years of a long struggle, the Chief Minister finally declares Bharat Lal alive by issuing an ordinance.
Writer and Director Satish Kaushik have managed to present the reality of the country's governance system and the reality of corruption which has spread to the roots in the so-called system in a satirical way. As a writer, he has done a good job in many places. It is a result of his writing that some ironic scenes are also impactful and intense like that, when Bharat Lal's wife Rukmani, in her husband's demand, enters an office to get widow pension by wearing mangal sutra and sindoor - how satires can create an impact, this scene was a perfect example.
Satish Kaushik has succeeded in depicting the entire system from the perspective of Bharat Lal. Not only this, with Kaagaz, he has also managed to touch the hearts of people once again. Nevertheless, the film moves very slowly in many places. If a little hard work was done on the script, the film could have become much better. Pankaj Tripathi carries the entire film on his shoulder. If there was another artist in his role as Bharat Lal, then perhaps it would not have been fun. Mita Vashisht and Amar Upadhyay were not given that importance. Apart from this, there was a need for tightening in editing and some of the scenes might give you a feeling that it's getting overboard.
The village sarpanch in the film has a dialogue- "Iss desh me rajyapal se bada lekhpal hota hai aur uske likhe ko koi nahi mita sakta." This dialogue perfectly pictures how unorganized and useless the system can be. Despite all of the positive aspects, the director somewhere fails to keep us engage with his character which looks very much two-dimensional without any depth as if their absence or presence wouldn't have mattered.
I'll have to admit that it's only Pankaj Tripathi who will make you sit through this film. He's undoubtedly terrific in every scene as Bharat Lal and brings out his character alive on screen. Even if some scenes might feel bizarre but it's his earnestness that makes this film looks grounded. Satish Kaushik is very impressive as Sadhuram Kevat, and M. Monal Gujjar as Rukmani is also good and others have done a fairly good job but fails to leave any marks, they're are just sidelined.
The cinematography by Arkodeb Mukherjee is quite nice and the production design by Ameet Prajapati also looks very real and detailed. The background score somehow feels out of scenes and the music is also forgettable. The editing by Sanjay Verma could have been crisper as the film appears to be sluggish in some places.
Overall, Kaagaz has an interesting premise and some scenes are really effective in creating impact. Nevertheless as said some scenes might feel awkward but as this film falls under the satirical genre it somehow manages to convince us with such bizarre sequences. Directed by Satish Kaushik and produced by Salman Khan, Kaagaz definitely succeeds in what it meant in delivering. But Satish Kaushik seems to be giving too much importance to his message rather than providing a little polishing to his characters. Otherwise it is a good attempt.
Rating:- 3/5
Now streaming on Zee5.
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