Director: Sudhir Mishra
Producer: Rangita Pritish Nandy, Etc
Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Shiney Ahuja, Chitrangada Singh, Ram Kapur
The title of the film, taken from a Ghalib couplet, aptly describes the hopes, dreams and disillusionments of a generation that saw itself as harbingers of change. The naxalite movement, two decades after the Indian Independence, was fuelled like all other movements and revolutions, by the ideals of justice and equality, and like all great movements ended in bloodshed, disillusionment, hopes crushed and dreams abandoned. It is surprising how naxalism (and Emergency) have failed to excite the imagination of our film-makers. Hazaaron… was a tale waiting to be told. Fortunately it found one of the best story-tellers around.
In a classic fashion, Mishra’s film begins at the very beginning. By pointing out the sentimental and somewhat indulgent fallacies in Nehru’s vision of India, Mishra opts for an involvement that lends credibility to his story without getting propagandist. The three main characters in the film reflect as much of their class concerns as their individual love conflicts. Siddharth has an identity crisis and tries to find a mooring in ideology. Vikram feels he cannot afford to get distracted by ideologies or ethical concerns in his struggle for social and financial security. They are both in love with Geeta who, trying desperately to keep her love and relationship with Siddharth going, makes sincere efforts to understand the cause Siddharth is fighting for. She is rational enough to see some of the discrepancies in the intellectual- ideological vision of the college going intelligentsia who fail to relate to the simple-minded, uneducated masses they are fighting for (there is a Sholay-esque question from a man in a crowd, “Who was Hitler?”).
Seeing revolution and love as exclusionary, Siddharth chooses to part ways with Geeta. The characters go their separate ways. Geeta marries an IAS officer, Vikram climbs the social ladder while Siddharth begins his lessons in reality in the villages of Bihar. In a delightful sequence where a mob of unruly villagers turn from being blood-thirsty to deeply concerned for their exploitative zamindar, Siddharth learns something about the people he is fighting for - only he cannot figure out what. The sequence is full of humour and irony and very few directors can pull it off the way Mishra does.
Geeta leaves her husband and makes the journey from the comforts of city to the violence- ravaged village. She starts doing her own bit here; not by helping Siddharth and his group in slitting throats of Zamindar’s henchmen, but by teaching in a village school. When the national Emergency is declared state institutions become instruments of repression and destroy whatever freedom remained. In Bhojpur village, the police become the naked manifestation of institutional power. Siddharth and Geeta are taken into custody where Siddharth is beaten to pulp and Geeta is brutally raped in front of him. People around them are casually butchered. Siddharth comes to see death in the face for the first time in reality and has his moment of self-realization. Vikram travels to the village to help his friend and ends up at the receiving end.
Siddharth moves to London and Geeta stays in a village school. Why? You ask. The rich boy, after his brief, confused affair with the proletariat, moves out of the mess he has helped create to the comforts of a foreign land; while the middle class, unwilling participant in this revolution, Vikram, ends up paying the real price. Vikram, of course, is not blameless. He has been a clog in the system without realizing, or perhaps ignoring the inherent violence of power. Geeta can never go back to the old comforts, for she is the one who has most closely felt and experienced this violence.
There are always more questions than answers at the end of any revolution. But isn’t asking questions a clearer sign of freedom and democracy? Sudhir Mishra’s film makes us conscious of the times we live in, and wonder whether it is better to fight for a lost cause or not having a cause to fight for. Yes, the generation of Hazaaron… is idealistic, confused and angry. But is the present generation any wiser with its quick distrust of ideologies and revolutions? When Vikram raised a toast to the revolution the audience laughed well before Siddharth did.
It is unfortunate that more films like these are not being made. You can only imagine what Mishra must have gone through to get this film produced and released, because he himself graciously avoids that story in his interviews. But some of the pressure of production shows in a couple of unclean cuts in the film. And also, the scenes on Emergency are not as hard-hitting as one would have expected. The political situation is not just a background to the love story, it is what shapes it. Mishra need not downplay the politics in the film. It should not worry him that a part of the audience is more interested in the love story. Good films, unlike government billboards on female foeticide, need not be understood by everybody.
written on 22 May 2005
Producer: Rangita Pritish Nandy, Etc
Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Shiney Ahuja, Chitrangada Singh, Ram Kapur
The title of the film, taken from a Ghalib couplet, aptly describes the hopes, dreams and disillusionments of a generation that saw itself as harbingers of change. The naxalite movement, two decades after the Indian Independence, was fuelled like all other movements and revolutions, by the ideals of justice and equality, and like all great movements ended in bloodshed, disillusionment, hopes crushed and dreams abandoned. It is surprising how naxalism (and Emergency) have failed to excite the imagination of our film-makers. Hazaaron… was a tale waiting to be told. Fortunately it found one of the best story-tellers around.
In a classic fashion, Mishra’s film begins at the very beginning. By pointing out the sentimental and somewhat indulgent fallacies in Nehru’s vision of India, Mishra opts for an involvement that lends credibility to his story without getting propagandist. The three main characters in the film reflect as much of their class concerns as their individual love conflicts. Siddharth has an identity crisis and tries to find a mooring in ideology. Vikram feels he cannot afford to get distracted by ideologies or ethical concerns in his struggle for social and financial security. They are both in love with Geeta who, trying desperately to keep her love and relationship with Siddharth going, makes sincere efforts to understand the cause Siddharth is fighting for. She is rational enough to see some of the discrepancies in the intellectual- ideological vision of the college going intelligentsia who fail to relate to the simple-minded, uneducated masses they are fighting for (there is a Sholay-esque question from a man in a crowd, “Who was Hitler?”).
Seeing revolution and love as exclusionary, Siddharth chooses to part ways with Geeta. The characters go their separate ways. Geeta marries an IAS officer, Vikram climbs the social ladder while Siddharth begins his lessons in reality in the villages of Bihar. In a delightful sequence where a mob of unruly villagers turn from being blood-thirsty to deeply concerned for their exploitative zamindar, Siddharth learns something about the people he is fighting for - only he cannot figure out what. The sequence is full of humour and irony and very few directors can pull it off the way Mishra does.
Geeta leaves her husband and makes the journey from the comforts of city to the violence- ravaged village. She starts doing her own bit here; not by helping Siddharth and his group in slitting throats of Zamindar’s henchmen, but by teaching in a village school. When the national Emergency is declared state institutions become instruments of repression and destroy whatever freedom remained. In Bhojpur village, the police become the naked manifestation of institutional power. Siddharth and Geeta are taken into custody where Siddharth is beaten to pulp and Geeta is brutally raped in front of him. People around them are casually butchered. Siddharth comes to see death in the face for the first time in reality and has his moment of self-realization. Vikram travels to the village to help his friend and ends up at the receiving end.
Siddharth moves to London and Geeta stays in a village school. Why? You ask. The rich boy, after his brief, confused affair with the proletariat, moves out of the mess he has helped create to the comforts of a foreign land; while the middle class, unwilling participant in this revolution, Vikram, ends up paying the real price. Vikram, of course, is not blameless. He has been a clog in the system without realizing, or perhaps ignoring the inherent violence of power. Geeta can never go back to the old comforts, for she is the one who has most closely felt and experienced this violence.
There are always more questions than answers at the end of any revolution. But isn’t asking questions a clearer sign of freedom and democracy? Sudhir Mishra’s film makes us conscious of the times we live in, and wonder whether it is better to fight for a lost cause or not having a cause to fight for. Yes, the generation of Hazaaron… is idealistic, confused and angry. But is the present generation any wiser with its quick distrust of ideologies and revolutions? When Vikram raised a toast to the revolution the audience laughed well before Siddharth did.
It is unfortunate that more films like these are not being made. You can only imagine what Mishra must have gone through to get this film produced and released, because he himself graciously avoids that story in his interviews. But some of the pressure of production shows in a couple of unclean cuts in the film. And also, the scenes on Emergency are not as hard-hitting as one would have expected. The political situation is not just a background to the love story, it is what shapes it. Mishra need not downplay the politics in the film. It should not worry him that a part of the audience is more interested in the love story. Good films, unlike government billboards on female foeticide, need not be understood by everybody.
written on 22 May 2005
3 comments:
The review says everything I'd have liked to say, if I could have put my thoughts/emotions in order. Very apt...
-Amit.
A wonderful review of a delightfully wonderful movie.
Very apt review of the film as well as of the time.
So many people had so many dreams....
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