It’s November, and as we are a couple of months away from wrapping 2026, I think I’ve found my pick of the year! Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Bandar’, a raw survival drama that gets everything perfect—from a washed-up actor’s delusion of a comeback to the underbelly of India’s in-trial prison. With reference to Kashyap’s filmography, if the iconic police station scene from the movie ‘Ugly’ is a teaser, ‘Bandar’ is a complete picture.
The film begins with a portrait of a doomed middle-aged star, Sameer Mehra’s life. His career, his relationships, and a past that is coming to haunt him! And ‘this event’ takes us from the gloomy, glamorous world to the nightmare of the Indian prison system.
Reflect. Adapt. Survive
The fast-paced screenplay introduces you to Sameer’s world(view) in the first act, and as the conflict nears, the trial begins. The system catches up to Sameer, then he is sent off to prison, and we enter the murky world! It is a broken but intricately run system, and every day(night) is a fight for survival. Here, the ins and outs of the jail mafia are perfectly captured, with a set of hellish characters, each with a story of their own, some brutal, some heartbreaking—but who to trust?
Sameer learns to adapt, but it is not as easy as it seems, as his privilege makes him devoid of any survival instincts. He learns to walk, run, and survive this hellhole! The jail setting feels like a nightmare you never want to find yourself in.
Embracing the System
The survival phase continues, and here’s where the opening line, “Hum apne hi circus ke Bandar hain,” comes into play. And for Sameer, it’s a circus of the modern media-legal system, which continues to run on a loop. Every day, every trial weakens his hope as he inches closer to accepting his dreaded fate. There’s a scene ahead of the climax where Sameer picks up a roach, claiming that the insect has survived the worst of changing environments for millions of years.
The ending shot pans on Sameer, sitting silently in his cell. For him, the external world was a cage of insecurities and failure, with no way out. Now, on trial, the situation is the same, except with no way out! Which one’s worse though?
Watch Bandar, streaming on ZEE5.
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