Newton

Newton Kumar is a civil servant. He is assigned as a polling officer in a forested region in central India. It is an area where an armed insurgency continues; the state is not really present and there are seventy six villagers eligible to vote. A military unit escorts him. The soldiers treat the job as a formality and want to be back before dark. Newton insists on following the rules to the letter: the booth will open, they will wait until the hours are up, and the paperwork will be done properly. Amit Masurkar directs. Rajkummar Rao plays Newton, with Pankaj Tripathi in the cast. The narrative proceeds as comedy and the subject is serious: whether an election is actually possible in such a place and who is voting on whose behalf. Its best quality is taking no side. The soldiers, the insurgents, the villagers and the official are none of them ill intentioned, and each is right within his own logic. Rajkummar Rao does not play the part as a hero; Newton is stubborn, self righteous and listens to nobody. It was India's submission for the foreign language Oscar and won an award at the Berlin film festival. The forest sections were shot on location and the geography of the region stands in the narrative as an obstacle. Who it is for: viewers who like political satire and Indian independent cinema. Who it is not for: little happens, the humour is dry, and some details stay closed without knowledge of the Indian electoral system.