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Film review: 'HU TU TU', starring Nana Patekar, Sunil Shetty, Tabu
An honest and overtly didactic statement on politics.
Seventeen reels of HU TU TU, evidently, do not seem enough for Gulzar. For the veteran director is in a mood to say a lot in his new film - and loud and clear at that.Based on one of his own short stories, the film is Gulzar's statement on the nation's pet hate - politics. Hu Tu Tu is about the game politics plays with the life of an ordinary, close-knit family from Shewri village in Maharashtra. Panna (Tabu) sees her mother Malti Barve (Suhasini Mulay) transform from a schoolteacher to a chief minister.
As Malti begins to enjoy the power that comes with politics, her ties with the family begin to disintegrate. Alienated, the impetuous Panna finds her soulmate in Aditya (Sunil Shetty in his first off-mainstream role), the equally disenchanted son of a corrupt industrialist (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). Giving a strident voice to their dilemmas is the Dalit street poet Bhau (Nana Patekar), a symbol of hope, principles and idealism.
Gulzar doesn't spell out the specific instances of corruption. He doesn't need to. The hollowness of Panna's family itself becomes a metaphor for the decadent state. As Panna says, "I can feel the corruption flowing in my blood." The film is also about the rootlessness of today's youth - "a generation that asks a lot of questions but gets no answers in return".
