Nadine Whitney had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Karan Kandhari and Radhika Apte about Sister Midnight and how as original and ‘weird’ as it is, it’s also representative of people who are rarely seen as (essential) inhabitants of Mumbai. Both Karan and Radhika are an absolute joy to listen to.

Kandhari’s film is a marvel of inventiveness. The work itself breaks the rules of what is considered genre cinema by never settling on one. Sister Midnight is much like the artist who performed the song after which it is named. Igwald Popstar – known to people who haven’t chosen a ridiculous nickname for him as Iggy Pop or James Newell Osterberg Jr., – a man for whom conformity is as anathema as wearing a shirt. It’s punk, it’s unpredictable, and it has no time to explain itself to people who aren’t feeling its strange and wonderful rhythms.

Uma and Gopal barely speak to each other but when Uma does open her mouth the crude (but funny) invectives pour out. Her spikiness doesn’t bother her neighbour Sheetal (Chhaya Kadam) greatly who takes her under her own resigned wing. However, even when Uma tries (and fails) to be wifely Gopal isn’t particularly receptive preferring instead to drink alone than to accommodate Uma. When they do try to be a young couple, they end up taking a pointless thirteen-hour excursion to a beach, only to have to turn around and go home again. Life seems to demand that when they are with each other it is in extremely close quarters which makes Uma more aggressive and Gopal more avoidant. The green wedding bangles she wears (and shakes in anger) become shackles she can’t wait to have cut off.

Uma begins to make her own way through the city encountering other people whose lives are on the fringes. A trans sex worker who feels a kind of kinship with Uma’s oddness. An elevator attendant in a building she begins working at as a cleaner (“Can you clean?” Uma is asked. “I’m a domestic goddess.” She replies), and then there are the goats who seem to follow her wherever she goes. Something is rising in her – something feral and undeniable – neither welcomed nor wholly unwelcomed.

Trying to describe what goes on in Sister Midnight is much like humming a blisteringly brilliant song and hoping your paltry version matches up. Karan Kandhari’s marvellous vision simply needs to be seen and heard (the soundtrack is incredible) for the fantastic jolts to pull you into its idiosyncratic and singular orbit.

Sister Midnight is vivid and infectious. Radhika Apte is towering as Uma who inability to just “be a person” makes her an outlaw setting her own rules. Expect the unexpected in Sister Midnight and trust wherever it takes you is going to be rebellious and irresistible.

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