Plus Minus | Divya Dutta & Bhuvan Bam | Short Film

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THE MORE INTRESTING PART ABOUT plus minus IS IT RAMAINS EFFECTIVE DESPITE BEING PREACHHY. ITS MORALITY IS BUILT INTO ITS DNA AND ARANGEMENT.......

It’s this subconscious entitlement and ignorance that Jyoti Kapur Das’ Plus Minus – an 18-minute short starring Divya Dutta  gently chides. Plus Minus, too, wields its simplicity as a weapon. Centered upon a conversation between a crabby Punjabi lady and a young soldier on a late-night train to Kapurthala, it is suitably humble on a humane level.  For the first eight minutes, is curiously inelegant – in that it becomes clear one of them is playing a character. Maybe if it were constructed better – Das last directed the excellently written Chutney, otherwise known as the most viewed Indian short film of all time – we might have been a little more attentive toward the faces rather than the performances. Dutta essentially plays the viewer, which is why it might have perhaps served the film better if her situation wasn’t “designed” so obviously. In hindsight, once the film’s intentions are revealed, this lack of naturalism somewhat makes sense. And given the uncomplicated sensibilities a film like this – or Dada, for that matter – targets, maybe the language is best kept sparse. And, well, respectful. 

The interesting part about Plus Minus is that it remains effective despite being preachy. Unlike other films, its morality is built into its DNA and arrangement. What’s more remarkable is our potential reaction to this little story. If we go straight to Wikipedia to verify the legend on which Plus Minus is based, it means that the film – which might have remained a fictitious drama in our head until its final moments – has succeeded in critiquing us. If not, there is perhaps no way someone familiar with its hero won’t feel the way the filmmakers of Dada once did. A plus-plus scenario, if there was ever one.