Mithya Explores Trauma With Tenderness

Mithya: The Many Shades Of Grief

Sumanth Bhat’s debut feature Mithya is an aching look at an orphaned child and his relationship with the world, writes Subha J Rao .

MANY A TIME in Sumanth Bhat’s Mithya , conditioned by today’s happenings and a generally unsafe world, the stomach knots up with uncertainty, wondering what would befall a child that seems to trust adults. You heave a sigh of relief, only to realise that the child can still be injured through other means — what he hears and how he’s treated — especially when he’s too young to remember it all, but also too old to forgetfully. Snatches of these conversations linger and play on in his head like scabs being yanked off.

Mithya might have a taut runtime of 100 minutes, but it paints a canvas so vivid, and so vast, as it delves into an 11-year-old child’s mind, and his relationship with the world after he loses the two people closest to him — his father, whose death is spoken about in hushed whispers, and his mother, who ended her life — and has to move with his sister Vandana (an adorable Avish S Shetty) from Mumbai to Udupi, from speaking fluent Marathi to halting Kannada, from a private English-medium school to a Kannada-medium one. His voice is still raspy as if something is bottled up deep inside him, as if he’s bypassed adolescence and has been forced to grow up. And you get what this child is going through, because Athish Shetty plays Mithun, fondly called Mithya, with a rare intensity for a child actor. He does not try too hard, nor is he mindful of the camera, even as cinematographer Udit Khurana (also director of the short film Taak , on surveillance) zooms in close where Mithya’s face is the focus of the frame. Midhun Mukundan’s haunting score adds to the numerous layers of Mithya .

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Athish seems to get that while the film can showcase violence and cruel conjecture, at its core, it’s about grief that is struggling to find a way out. And, he uses his tender face well — it hardens in turn and curves into a forced half smile at others.

Unlike him, the much younger Vandana integrates fully, faintly remembering there was another mother, but always remembering Mithya's her brother, even as she bonds with her aunt's daughter Anu (Sharvari Bhat, who is lovely as the kid dealing with a family that grows from three people to five).

The film is about children, not for them. This is more of a guide to parenting sensitively. About the importance of conversation. This is something Sumanth, whose Ekam web series premiered last year) is upfront about. Early on in the film, you wonder why auto driver Surya (an excellent Prakash Thuminad), the husband of Mithun’s aunt Jyothi (Roopa Varkady beautifully traverses the curve from initial hesitation to loving Mithya ) , seems more caring and tender towards Mithya. And, a scarred child is grudgingly drawn to this man, so different from his father, and not his aunt, who is technically closer in relation to him.

It’s almost like you can see the questions on Mithya’s face — Can he be trusted? The scene in the auto-rickshaw is probably the film’s crux: a person with daddy issues and various complexes can work on himself to fix generational trauma and build a relationship with his orphaned nephew. And, then every previous scene falls in place — the tenderness, the court battle for custody. Mithya is Surya’s chance at setting right a past wrong.

Prakash Thuminad is spectacular in this scene. And, you, once again, rue the stereotyping of fine actors who deserve so much better in other films.

When adults fight, children are bystanding pawns, unable to do anything but see their childhood being stripped away, cuss word by cuss word, beating by beating. It is worse when they have to go back and recall these, for the world to piece together how a marriage and two lives ended. Something similar happens with Mithya, and everyone wants to know his backstory: how did his father die, did his mother….? And, the child swallows it all in, responding in monosyllables and grunts, his eyes unfeeling, and dry as a desert. He comes alive when cycling, the wind on his face, carefree, briefly forgetting Mumbai and terrible memories of a swirling fan.

At the juvenile home, Mithun suffers in silence, sticking out, always the child who neatly hangs his towel in the bathroom, always the child who tries to control his rebellion, and fails.

For a child who grows in a home with raised tempers and voices, Mithya’s protest is silent: not immediately responding to people, pretending to bathe but pouring the water on his feet — all seemingly ineffective, but possibly the only control a child can wield in a world where decisions concerning him are taken by others.

Nature is his calm balm — the field he runs to, to be with his friend Kishen (Namruth Acharya), a clearing in the jungle that leads to a water body, and a dilapidated building where two boys strike an unlikely friendship. Udit’s camera is especially lovely in the water stretches, allowing the film to take on a mellow pace and flow gently, even as you soak in the beauty of the land in contrast to the agony of a child. And, finally, in the same waters, you see a battle of conscience play out — will the water win or will the love that’s dormant inside Mithya?

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Mithya is produced by writer-actor-director Rakshit Shetty under his Paramvah Pictures banner. Kudos for consistently backing films high on craft that deserve to be seen.

This is Sumanth Bhat’s debut feature, and the love for the subject is as visible in the writing as it is in the tone and intent of the film — he’s always respectful of the audience, never spoonfeeding them, but expecting them to pick up the hints and nuances sprinkled through the film. He also manages to make a film about grief and the non-voyeuristic reading of human beings. Mithun’s grief is his alone, never yours to salivate over, and gossip about, building on what came by the grapevine. And Sumanth tells you that when the dam of grief finally bursts, it brings great relief — possibly some tears, but it also marks the return of intense love and a sense of belonging. And then, Mithun truly becomes Mithya again.

Psst! Looking for a narratives about a slightly older demographic? These 5 youth-oriented Kannada films span the years from school to college

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