“There are two kinds of untouchable — those who nobody wants to touch, and those who nobody can touch.”
A quiet gut-punch of a film that strips away any illusions about justice.
At its core, Santosh is about caste, gender, and systemic power — how the police, and by extension the law, often serve as tools for the privileged to reinforce their control.
The film lays bare just how broken the Indian police force really is, a system that crushes the weak beneath its leather boot in a hollow display of authority, while wielding almost no actual power. It paints a picture of the police not as a protector, but as an enforcer of status quo. Faith in the institution is absent; not just among the public, but eventually within Santosh herself, there's no place for good people in this organisation.
It’s a haunting contrast to something like Article 15. Where that film ends with a triumphant “hurrah,” Santosh closes with a muffled scream — not because justice was denied, but because it was never even on the table.
The wide shot compositions are stunning. One shot near the end, framed through the windows of a moving train, creates a cool stop-motion effect, loved it.
That said, the film isn’t without flaws. The middle act drags, it finds itself again in the last 30 min though, and while its themes are vital, they often remain surface-level. It also has the poverty porn gimmick to appeal to foreign audience.
Yet, Santosh lingers. Not because it offers answers, but because it denies them. Sometimes change doesn’t come with a heroic speech...
...sometimes it doesn’t come at all.
“There are two kinds of untouchable — those who nobody wants to touch, and those who nobody can touch.”
A quiet gut-punch of a film that strips away any illusions about justice.
At its core, Santosh is about caste, gender, and systemic power — how the police, and by extension the law, often serve as tools for the privileged to reinforce their control.
The film lays bare just how broken the Indian police force really is, a system that crushes the weak beneath its leather boot in a hollow display of authority, while wielding almost no actual power. It paints a picture of the police not as a protector, but as an enforcer of status quo. Faith in the institution is absent; not just among the public, but eventually within Santosh herself, there's no place for good people in this organisation.
It’s a haunting contrast to something like Article 15. Where that film ends with a triumphant “hurrah,” Santosh closes with a muffled scream — not because justice was denied, but because it was never even on the table.
The wide shot compositions are stunning. One shot near the end, framed through the windows of a moving train, creates a cool stop-motion effect, loved it.
That said, the film isn’t without flaws. The middle act drags, it finds itself again in the last 30 min though, and while its themes are vital, they often remain surface-level. It also has the poverty porn gimmick to appeal to foreign audience.
Yet, Santosh lingers. Not because it offers answers, but because it denies them. Sometimes change doesn’t come with a heroic speech...
...sometimes it doesn’t come at all.
