The White Tiger

Up for discussion tonight: The White Tiger (dir. Ramin Bahrani-2021). It's based on the 2008 novel by Aravind Adiga (which won the 40th Man Booker Prize), and the director, Iranian-American Ramin Bahrani, is a good friend of Adiga. It turns out that I have read his second novel, Last Man in Tower, recently--it is an equally gripping and dark (and darkly humorous) examination of Indian society through the story of real estate development.

The film's narrative is structured by the device of the protagonist, Balram (played by Adarsh Gourav), writing a letter to the visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, telling in voice-over how he came to be a successful entrepreneur despite his origins in an impoverished family from a small village. This works to explain things to the viewer as well, thus incorporating the outsider's view into the story. Balram says the future of India is with China instead of "the white man."

 Promised a scholarship as a boy when he showed his ability to read in English, he was forced out of school into work at a tea shop by his grandmother. Desperate to escape the fate of being controlled by his family, he convinces her to give him money to learn to drive so he can become the "second driver" for the village landlord, the Stork. We see how the landlord reinforces his extortionate collection of villagers' earnings with brutality and insults; his son the Mongoose is his thuggish strongman. His American-educated son is back in India with his NRI wife Pinky (Priyanka Chopra). Balram fast-talks his way into the job which entails cleaning the mansion as well as being on call for driving. But he has a uniform and sends money back to his family, as he'd promised. At first he sees loyalty and hustle as the path to getting ahead, but then he gets rid of the first driver by threatening to reveal that he's secretly a Muslim. His view of the social relations of Indian servants is that of the rooster coop: the rooster can see the fate of his fellows but doesn't rebel.   Once he realizes that he will never be able to break out of his servitude, he begins to cheat and skim, like everyone else. Balram is willing to use dirty means to make sure he is safe and can move up. Master and servant.

While Adosh and Pinky act as if they are willing to set aside some of the more brutish aspects of caste society, when Pinky hits a child while driving drunk, the family sets Balram up as the scapegoat, threatening his family if he doesn't go along and sign away his life. Even though they fix things so that Balram is not charged, they threaten him (and his family) if he were ever to talk. And when Balram's family send a child for him to take care of, and announce their plans to marry him off or else, he comes up with a plan. He kills Adosh and steals the money he had been toting around to bribe officials in a red bag, using it to move away with his nephew and to bribe his way to a monopoly for his chauffeur service. "What he does is monstrous, but you understand it" says Oliver Stone in an interview with the director.

The end of the film shows him taking care of a similar accident by paying off the family and giving work to their other son. The last shot is of his group of drivers staring back into the camera. What happens when tradition, caste, and a corrupt political class choke off dignity and ambition? The film shows the character's ruthlessness with cynicism.

Many reviews make the inevitable contrast with Slumdog Millionaire, and there are lots of comparisons to Parasite. 

Here's an interview with director Ramin Bahrani. I'd like to track down his other films.