Review of Shivamma (2022)
Seen in 2023.
A middle-aged, poor, rural, lower-caste woman has two unwed adult children and a sick husband. Desperate to improve her lot, she invests heavily in a pyramid scheme to sell Nuracle, a dubious nutritional supplement brand that she thinks has helped her husband.
The core of the narrative is designed to teach a lesson about pseudoscience and pyramid schemes to an audience that needs such lessons. That’s all done well enough. Curiously, it’s presented mostly as if it were a documentary, with a camera operator or two just happening to catch pivotal moments along with a comprehensive picture of daily life. Amateur actors and leisurely editing combine into a vivid picture of poverty. Shivamma’s parasitism is a problem not just because she hurts strangers, but because she tears at the familial bonds that she must continue to rely on, after she has brought down a disaster on their heads.
Shivamma was advertised in the festival programme of GIFF 2023 as a “wonderful parody” with a laugh a minute. That is incorrect. The film is a tragedy, but it does have one very funny scene: A roast at a burial, cleverly disguised as a ceremonial wail of sorrow.