REVIEW 392: SARBJIT

Release date:	May 20, 2016
Director:	Omung Kumar
Cast: Language:	Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Randeep Hooda, Richa Chadha, Darshan Kumaar  Hindi and Punjabi

Once upon a time there was Sunny Deol’s dhai kilo ka haath, which uprooted a hand pump to scare off the entire Pakistan Army. Today there is Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s index finger.

To be fair, Sarbjit is not the unrelenting screamfest that Gadar was, but Deol’s film came to mind as the former Miss World held up her famous slender digit to intimidate an armed Pakistani security official. She did this right after delivering a loud speech to a Pakistani mob about how Pakistanis stab us Indians in the back while we bravely fight them face to face. As expected, the gun-bearing Pakistani meekly moves aside, and she proceeds to grandly walk past him as only Indian movie stars can when up against the dreaded dushman from across the border.

This embarrassingly tacky, populist scene of high-decibel, chest-thumping patriotism is the low point in a film that never quite takes off anyway.

August 25, 1990: a farmer from Bhikhiwind village in Punjab crosses the India-Pak border in an inebriated state, is mistaken for a terrorist and jailed in Pakistan, returning 23 years later in a coffin after he is allegedly murdered by fellow prisoners.

The true story of Sarabjit Singh Atwal is a tragedy of gargantuan proportions that is enough to move a rock to tears. Yet director Omung Kumar somehow manages to make a curiously unmoving film out of this inherently heartbreaking story.

A large part of the reason for this is the writing by Utkarshini Vashishtha and Rajesh Beri, which places Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur rather than Sarabjit at the centre of the plot. This might have been an acceptable writing choice if they had focused on the nitty-gritty of this brave woman’s battle to free her brother. Instead we get broad brush strokes which induce a sense of detachment rather than involvement with this real-life crusader and her unfortunate sibling.

The writing is not the film’s primary problem though. The primary problem is the casting of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Dalbir. Try as she might, the actress cannot get under the skin of her character. She does not have the look or the body language of a Sardarni from rural Punjab, but her effort to get there shows in every studied gesture, every laboured expression, every step, every word spoken, until that effort becomes so distracting that it eclipses all else in the film.   

This is particularly unfortunate because the rest of the cast is formidably gifted, but the entire project seems designed to ensure that they do not overshadow the central star. Rarely has Bollywood witnessed such a self-defeating approach to filmmaking.

Despite this, Randeep Hooda – one of the industry’s most under-rated talents – shines as Sarabjit to the extent that it is possible given the limited writing. His physical transformation from a healthy, happy-go-lucky young farmer and wrestling enthusiast to a scrawny, ragged, filthy prisoner is remarkable, a combination of his own scary dedication (he reportedly lost 18kg for the role), SFX and his makeup artist Renuka Pillai’s ability to understand the requirements of a character. In his skinny body and decrepit face here, it is hard to spot the actor’s naturally sexy persona or the hot physique he has happily displayed in earlier films.

Commendably though, Hooda does not use the bodily makeover as a crutch. His performance is greatly handicapped by the fact that the camera rarely dwells on his face when it is in the light in India, and in the shadows in his Pakistani prison we see his countenance with clarity pretty late into Sarbjit’s running time. Further diverting attention from him, quite senselessly, are pictures of the real Sarabjit on posters and placards being held up by campaigners in the film – serving to repeatedly remind the audience that the guy we see on screen is someone else.

Hampered in so many ways from so many directions, Hooda still immerses himself in the role, making it possible to sometimes forget that he is but an actor playing a part.

Richa Chadha as Sarabjit’s wife Sukhpreet is mostly on the margins, but in the one scene where the spotlight is firmly on her, she sparkles. The situation is a confrontation between Sukhpreet and Dalbir. Without raising her voice even a single notch, without seeming to try at all, Chadha delivers the only scene in the entire film in which I found myself crying.

Darshan Kumaar is the new chameleon of Bollywood. As the zealous Pakistani lawyer Avais Sheikh who takes up Sarbjit’s case he is a far cry from the heroine’s soft-spoken, supportive husband he played in Mary Kom (2014) or the frightfully evil fellow he was in last year’s NH10.

Omung Kumar debuted with Mary Kom in which, despite the grievous offence of casting Priyanka Chopra as a Manipuri woman, he pulled through on the strength of Saiwyn Quadras’ solid script, Chopra’s acting talent and his own firm directorial hand. Here though, he seems scattered and star-struck. It is as if he zeroed in on a star and built a film around her. Big mistake.

When you watch Sarbjit, you must accept it as a given that the makers believe Sarabjit Singh Atwal and his family’s version of events, not the Pakistani authorities. The reason why that is okay is because the film is not pretending to be a journalistic exercise telling all sides of the story; it is open about its stance that it is a feature recounting one side of the story. Besides, unlike the Akshay Kumar-starrer Airlift released earlier this year, the fictionalisation here does not amount to outright, blatant lies revolving around a protagonist who never existed in reality.

The news occurrences in Sarbjit are more or less faithful to Indian media reports, with certain self-serving omissions such as the real Sarabjit’s reported admission to a Pakistani judge that he was involved in cross-border liquor smuggling (not spying and terrorism) or the controversies surrounding the real Dalbir. Even if these exclusions were to be excused as cinematic licence, the problem remains that this film fails to flesh out the people at the heart of this true story.

Statistics flashed on screen right before the end credits inform us that there were 403 Indians languishing in Pakistani jails and 278 Pakistanis in Indian jails as on July 1, 2015. Like Sarabjit, they are not mere numbers, they are living breathing human beings, many of whom (though not all) are innocent victims of the long-running political enmity between India and Pakistan. 

Sarbjit is a lesson in how not to tell their story.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	132 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/sarbjit-sarabjit-aishwarya-rai-bachchan-randeep-hooda-richa-chadha-2790936.html

Poster courtesy: Team Celeb Studio Talk

  

REVIEW 323: NH10

Release date:	March 13, 2015
Director:	Navdeep Singh
Cast: Language:	Anushka Sharma, Neil Bhoopalam, Darshan Kumaar, Deepti Naval Hindi

NH10 is eerie, scary and frighteningly realistic.

It is the kind of film women who drive their own cars in big cities might watch and pray: I hope this never happens to me. Or worse: I’ve been so close to being in such a situation more than once in my life, thank goodness I got away safe.

The action takes off when a woman driving through Gurgaon is attacked by hooligans one night. The horrific episode leads to her purchasing a gun for her protection (dear non-NCR-ites, Meera’s acquisition is unusual; please don’t exoticise Delhi/Gurgaon any more than you already do after watching this film). Not long after this incident, she and her husband witness a fracas on a highway, and a series of tragedies are set off by the lethal mix of a man’s basic decency, his wounded ego and the knowledge that a gun is within easy reach.

What happens to Meera (Anushka Sharma) and Arjun (Neil Bhoopalam) is every traveller’s nightmare. Director Navdeep Singh – who earlier made the acclaimed Manorama Six Feet Under – has designed his road film as a thriller, but it is also a layered commentary on gender and caste. NH10 examines social reactions to violence against women, the difference between how men and women respond to assault, the intricacies of human relations, public morality, migrants, the assumptions we make about people and the many planets packed into Planet India.

Why do men tend to counter aggression with aggression, while women instinctively recoil and retreat to protect themselves? Should we help a person in danger, if it means risking our own and a loved one’s life? If the impetuosity of a man we love puts us at risk, do we stop loving him?

As events hurtle down National Highway 10 at breakneck speed, Singh injects his film with questions, answers and depth rarely seen in suspense dramas. That is what makes NH10 special.

When Meera suffers the first attack, for instance, the policeman taking her complaint casually informs her that it would have been so much easier to solve this case if she had noted down the licence plate numbers of her attackers’ vehicles. He does not stop at asking her if she did (a legitimate question), he makes it sound like he is chiding her because she did not.

You can sense Meera’s frustration, habituated as women are to being lectured about protecting ourselves. Why did you not note down the number? (I was scared, flustered and busy fighting off a murderous gang, you idiot!) Why were you on a lonely road? Why were you in a crowd? Why were you alone? Why did you not take a man along? Why were you with a man?

The conversation at the police station barely lasts a minute yet resonates with significance. In fact, the spotlight is trained almost throughout NH10 on how women are constantly stalked by sexism, extreme misogyny and security concerns in a world where even going to a public toilet could be an act of bravery. Where if she does not go to that toilet she might be mocked for being paranoid, but if she does and something untoward happens, she might well be asked: why did you? The film later turns also into a disturbing chronicle of caste intertwined with gender and the many contiguous worlds within India, where a jeans-clad, English-speaking woman from Gurgaon city is a virtual foreigner in rural Haryana.

In a film where every moment counts, it’s hard though to decipher that scene in which a fatigued Meera pointedly sits down to smoke, in a moment of twisted triumph. Since her cigarette habit is mentioned repeatedly early in NH10, clearly that later scene is a metaphor for something. Can’t tell what. It does seem though that with rare exceptions, Hindi cinema is now incapable of giving us tough, successful women who are not smokers. Understand this, Bollywood: assuming that all smart women must be smoking is no less regressive than branding women smokers as immoral.

That lapse notwithstanding, NH10 is a hard-hitting film that is completely terrifying in an I-kept-my-eyes-half-covered-because-I-couldn’t-bear-to-watch-it-yet-I-was-dying-to-see-what-was-going-on sort of way. Its impact is achieved with the coming together of quality acting, intelligently used music, concise dialogue writing, impeccable editing and sharp sound design (not counting a couple of places where those tyres on the road could have been toned down and the over-done spell of metal scraping the ground in the climactic scene).

It is a measure of Bhoopalam’s talent and charisma that even when Arjun is exasperatingly foolhardy, it is hard to entirely hate him. Darshan Kumaar’s violent Satbir is as far removed from his turn as Mary Kom’s gentle husband as Chile is from China. He is brilliant.

Headlining the cast is that pretty model we first saw acting in Aditya Chopra’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008). Anushka – who turns producer with NH10 – delivers a stupendous, immersive performance here, displaying immense range within a single role. In fact, there is hardly any Anushka in this film, there is only Meera.

When it goes easy on layering and nuance to focus on suspense post-interval, NH10 loses some of its edge. When it stretches Meera’s exploits in the climax, filling an ominous silence with a single heightened metallic sound, it feels manipulative although her actions are believable. That said, NH10 is never less than compelling. It is from start to finish a thoroughly absorbing film.

Rating (out of five): ***1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	A
Running time:	115 minutes

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NH10