The film is rife with symbols, ripe for readings. But when the plot kicks in, it goes all over the place.
Spoilers ahead…
I‘ll begin with an aside: The title of Anurag Kashyap’s latest film, Choked, reminded me of Utpalendu Chakraborty’s 1982 Bengali drama, Chokh. And it’s not just that they sound similar. Both are topical, political films that weave their stories around systemic oppression. Chokh came a few years after the Emergency, but its story was set in those dark times. Choked comes a few years after Demonetisation (the word deserves a capital D, no?), but its story is set in 2016, in those… dark times. Also, the titles of both films refer to body parts of the common man: the older film revolves around the protagonist’s eyes, the new one about the protagonist’s throat. Or more specifically, the voice: the common man’s voice that ends up suppressed, stifled, choked. This is literalised and metaphor-ised when Sarita (Saiyami Kher), who’s normally a good singer, freezes in front of an audience during the taping of a reality show. That’s right. She chokes.
Read the rest of this article here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/reviews/bollywood-review/anurag-kashyaps-choked-on-netflix-this-demonetisation-themed-satire-begins-brilliantly-but-collapses-after-a-point-saiyami-kher-baradwaj-rangan-roshan-mathew/
Copyright ©2020 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
tonks
June 13, 2020
As for the ending, which occurs a year later, I’m still scratching my head
Saw this movie two days back. What I did not understand about the ending was that Sushant did not volunteer information about the money he found. He only admitted it when questioned by the authorities. He was caught trying to pass off that money as his own, because of the heist.
Why would they reward someone for that? I thought they would be punished.
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N Madhusudhan
June 13, 2020
I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Was waiting for your review and i have to admit, i am as surprised at the review as i was at the film. Looks like i am the only one not complaining about the climax. In fact, it cracked me up big time. I enjoyed the light-hearted treatment of relatively heavy themes such as greed, a crumbling marriage, DeMo etc.
I like the new route Anurag Kashyap seems to have taken from Mukkabaaz. We know he can efficiently make those dark thrillers and gangster films but he seems to be expanding into newer territories now. There were quite a few scenes in Choked that made me laugh out loud. I think he’s just a film or two away from making a full length comedy. Hope he soon finds his much deserved and long overdue box office success. Was Manmarziyan a box office hit?
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tonks
June 13, 2020
And if you thought bank robbers taking selfies (that go viral, reach the police) and getting caught only happens in movies :
https://mashable.com/2015/09/28/bank-robbers-selfies-stolen-money/
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Aman
June 14, 2020
Please do review Paatal Lok!! I’m highly looking forward to your take on the series.
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Anu Warrier
June 14, 2020
I’ve mixed feelings about this as I do about most of Kashyap’s movies. He generally has something interesting to say, but somewhere, he loses track of plot. Perhaps what he needs is a good editor, someone who can braid all those skeins of his very vivid imagination together, I liked Saiyami Kher in the film, though.
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ravenus1
June 14, 2020
There is one sequence which is brilliant in the way it cross-cuts two entirely different events generating the rhythm in-situ and then goes into a third event which is a marvelous fantasy that ties in with the main character.
Also, an AK film where no one even says Chutiya gladdens my ears. This is a more light-hearted AK, which is not a bad thing.
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brangan
June 14, 2020
N Madhusudhan: I did not find the film BAD at all — just that it had a brilliant set-up and then kind of collapsed. I was especially disappointed with the way the neighbours were written, and even the Sushant character was all over the place.
And the ending was a bit baffling, as tonks says. I felt it was too easy an out…
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abishekspeare
June 14, 2020
Is it only me or does an Anurag Kashyap movie released on netflix not have half the hype as a theatrical release? There’s no enthusiasm and a curiosity regarding what he has to offer, even the reviews are mostly treating in as just another digital dump and not the work of a Superstar director
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Honest Raj
June 14, 2020
@abishekspeare: AK has never been a superstar director (in the Hirani/SLB sense). I have a feeling that he’s already hit the saturation point. I found his segment the least satisfying of all in Lust Stories.
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krishikari
June 14, 2020
Just watched and thoroughly enjoyed it, the neighbours characterisations did not bother me at all, all building societies are like that I feel, all gossipy and friends like family. We lived on a street like that once. I loved the shopping outing, the bank robbery intercut with the music job, the delayed flash back was great. The relationship issues rang very true too.
I only wish Rajshri Deshpande had a bigger role.
Also the reward was a minor quibble for me compared to how she did not answer the question of how the money came to the bank. Wouldn’t there be some record?
I like Anurag Kashyap making a fun movie with Tamil touches. No smoking was a promise of future surreal humour that he still needs to deliver.
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JPhil
June 14, 2020
In his interview on FC, AK describes the project as ‘ What if Sai Paranjpaye made a thriller? ‘ . I think he sets out to do this, but gets all ‘choked’ out because of the anti NaMo/DeMo messaging .
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krishikari
June 14, 2020
https://in.mashable.com/entertainment/14557/exclusive-anurag-kashyap-on-chokeds-subtle-criticism-and-visual-storytelling?amp=1&__twitter_impression=true
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brangan
June 15, 2020
JPhil: Yes, exactly.
I loved the buildup so much because of the superb filmmaking and the sharp focus on the protagonist (and her world). It’s interesting to know AK had Sai Paranjpe in mind 🙂
But once DeMo hits, the film splits into two tracks: the DeMo ‘commentary’ and (as before) the protagonist (and her world).
For me, these two never came together. It’s the writing more than anything else.
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krishikari
June 15, 2020
“I think he sets out to do this, but gets all ‘choked’ out because of the anti NaMo/DeMo messaging .”
Exactly the opposite, IMO. It worked for me, because the treatment of the messaging was overt yet light. It stuck to the middle class venue, people died because of demo but the film stayed in the world it created, the protagonist remains apolitical. Without this commentary the film has no context, critics would be complaining about it being empty.
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N Madhusudhan
June 15, 2020
@BR and krishikari: The commentary didn’t bother me as well. In fact it didn’t feel like commentary at all. The only place where it felt strange was when Sarita tells an aged customer “You don’t get sympathy here. Go get it from the person you voted for”. But you could still say that an overworked bank employee would probably say it to a customer. I didn’t think the focus really shifted from the protagonist to the DeMo phenomenon. It didn’t feel like it stopped being the family drama it started out to be. It’s just a few shots, isn’t it? – Like Sushant dancing on the road, crowds outside the banks etc. When Sushant praises Modi to his wife, she puts him in his place saying ‘chai banao, kitchen clean karo aur pradhan mantri bano’. Even if it seems to go the other way, it always comes back to Sarita.
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krishikari
June 15, 2020
I mean, without DeMo what would the story be? Woman finds money stash, her problems are solved? With DeMo she finds money, ironically her windfall becomes worthless while her husband and friends celebrate NaMo’ s brilliant move against corruption. Then double irony, due to corruption, brand new notes appear. The political stuff is actually integral to the plot.
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gnanaozhi
June 15, 2020
@anu I think one reason his recent offerings fall flat is he suffers from the PA Ranjit syndrome.
They both are polemical narrators first and directors second. They try and inject so much of their political agenda that they lose sight of the cinematic vision.
Take AK, his GoW was “pure”, he was a voyeur,. Fly on the wall and the trilogy was sheer brilliance. But take this, even BR hints at this, the movie is good till
“But about 45 minutes into the movie, NaMo unleashes DeMo, and the carefully constructed set-up collapses. The tone begins to fluctuate wildly”
And the other line about the tonal shift on how the middle class is being robbed.
This is the same reason Sacred Games 2 sucked, 1 was all about the plot, 2 was all about AK’s political and ideological agenda and the outcome was not pretty.
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brangan
June 16, 2020
krishikari: The political stuff is actually integral to the plot.
Oh, I am not denying that at all. My issue is more with HOW it all plays out. The change of the Amruta Subhash character. The Reddy character being built up and disposed (it really looked like they didn’t know how to end that arc). Sushant being what he is, and his “confession” to the IT guys at the end.
So many of these choices did not work for me, unlike the first 45-odd minutes, which I found superb.
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krishikari
June 18, 2020
@BR okay, now I see. I thought you were saying that the political commentary ruined the movie. About the confession in the end, that just came out of nowhere, though the plumbing set up was done well, Sushant’s role needed to be incorporated in a cleverer way.
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Vishnu
May 21, 2021
While, to some extent, I also agree that the film loses some plot after first 50 odd minutes. But I think it has more to do with the fact that here Kashyap is wearing hat of the director only. And whenever he is not a writer-director, it seems he is not able to pull the vision of someone else. Manmarziyaan is another case point. While the film is fueled with some kinetic romance, it also suffers somewhere in the second half. But in case of Manmarziyaan, the climactic walk the talk sequence pulls everything together. Unfortunately, in case of Choked, that doesn’t happen. So the wretched (read repetitive) portions of screenplay in both films indicate that a writer-director Kashyap is more at an ease than a director Kashyap. Really not sure if I am the only one who feels this way, but a pattern is surely emerging that distinguishes two Kashyaps.
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