Abhay Deol’s Manorama Six Feet Under: The neo-noir film that shifted the actor’s career in a new direction
It’s not every day that you come across a film that completely engrosses you and makes you question your decisions despite its slow pace. Manorama Six Feet Under, starring Abhay Deol, is a good example of this.
NH-10 filmmaker Navdeep Singh made his Bollywood debut with this film, which was deliberately slow in the first half and surprisingly comical at the most simple and unexpected moments. If you look at the movie’s poster and trailer right now, you might think it’s boring. Thanks to Singh, who painstakingly draws you in and never lets you go, Manorama Six Feet Under turned out to be anything but.
Manorama is a film set in the sleepy Rajasthan town of Lakhot, and it appears as sparse and desolate as its setting. Even when the makers give you its first quietly ominous indication — the sudden appearance of a woman in her 30s, presenting herself as irrigation minister’s wife, at Satyaveer’s (Abhay Deol) doorstep one late night — you don’t know how gruesome and intricately things are interconnected. She’s read Satyaveer’s one and only attempt at writing and is impressed by the detective in his novel. She wants him to spy on her own husband in real life to see if he is indeed having an affair. Our enigmatic, almost bored hero agrees.
Things start to unravel, and no one is who they seem. This includes the quiet hero who is smart and sincere, and who genuinely wants to help. However, the would-be detective is a regular guy who is forced to take extraordinary measures due to the circumstances. It’s fascinating to see things through Satyaveer’s eyes, as an exhausted man tired of being nagged by his wife and living a simple, mundane existence. Satyaveer isn’t the wisest owl, and putting things together takes time for him. He isn’t perfect either; he comes close to cheating on his wife by kissing Raima Sen’s Sheetal.
The facade of a crime thriller is maintained by these layered personalities and the stories they tell to each other and to themselves. Manorama Six Feet Under is a human storey about a lonely man who appears to be trapped in a desert. The dialogues are exquisite. Sample this for instance — “Yeh sheher bhi mere jeevan ki tarah lagne laga tha – sukha, khushk, niras aur pyaasa…shaayad registaan aise hi bante hain.” One of the reasons why director Navdeep never uses Rajasthan’s natural beauty to enhance the film’s loveliness is that he doesn’t want the scenic locations to overshadow the storey. But he didn’t have to be concerned; Satyaveer, the film’s main character, takes advantage of Lakhot’s barrenness by drawing parallels to his own bleak existence. Lakhot is a pivotal character in the film due to the crimes and secrets it has endured and kept buried in its womb for so long.
Abhay Deol was cast in this film at a time when he had only done romantic comedies. However, in 2007, Deol portrayed a version of himself that had never been seen on screen before in Manorama Six Feet Under. One who wasn’t cute or goofy, but was older, wiser, and more complex. It seems unnecessary to say that Abhay was well-cast; he passed with flying colours after writing an entire article praising the film. And perhaps it was because of this film that he began to approach movies with greater caution. Abhay is heard saying in a making-of video for the film that he doesn’t want to be a typical Bollywood hero: “Honestly, I don’t want to do song and dance.” However, a good film is a good film if it is well-written, well-cast, and well-shot; these are the elements that make a movie, not whether or not it has songs.”
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