(by Macaulay Perapulla)
Long before Baradwaj Rangan became the film critic de rigeur of the average Indian cinephile, he mastered the rare art of writing delightful reviews that were couched in the most mundane typographical devices: Bullet Points. Back in his Indian Express days, when BR’s writings were the purist Rayar Mess for the Chennai cinephile, they were the perfect dessert that came along after a Saturday high-brow meal, “In Between Reviews”.
Now that the video has killed the essay writer (save a few exhibition match appearances), a nostalgic, old reader presents a pastiche of a review to fondly recall those glorious days of bullet-point reports.
- ● When the trailer for Sardar Udham landed, I was cynical. Et tu Shoojit? Now that you have the best ingredients, are you going to serve the cinematic equivalent of a triple sundae for the jingoistic audience getting high on ancient runes and forgotten myths? Shoojit Sircar deserves a toast for his audacity. He dares to serve you a tall glass of milk that is real and effective enough to keep you going until you discover the potent ones that lay quietly at the bottom, in the last 30 minutes of the movie, when the movie knocks your socks off with its chilling depiction of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre.
- ● I sat up when Sardar Udham shot down Michael O’Dwyer in the first thirty minutes of the movie. Now that he is done with the killing, the writers go for an unconventional narrative arc that beautifully carries the impact of a traumatized revolutionary while navigating the post-truth of an assasination that lay under the classified files of British neo-colonialism for far too long.
- ● Sardar Udham reminded me of Munich, yet another lovely movie which uses the trauma as the climactic act of denouement to liberate the protagonist from the traumatic memories of the massacre.
- ● Sardar Udham starts off when Sher Singh is released from the prison in quest of his freedom, and along with him, we journey along to discover our brief little glimpses of freedom in the end, only after experiencing the emotional catharsis that awaits those who were too pained to heal from this ghastly massacre.
- ● It took Indians over 28 years to win Independence after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. 1600 Sikhs were killed by the Gorkha, Pathan, Baluch and Sindh regiments. How I wish the director had also cinematically explored the trauma carried by the soldiers who were ordered to shoot their fellow countrymen.
- ● After Udta Punjab showed the Punjabi youth that was high on drugs, how enchanting it is to see young revolutionaries drunk with their pursuit of inner freedoms: Meri jawani ka matlab bana? Ya zaaya kar di?((Did my life become meaningful or did I fritter it away?)
Baradwaj Rangan 
Madan
October 23, 2021
Great write up and a great imitation of BR saab. Had there been no Readers Write in the title and had I not read the byline, I wouldn’t know the difference. This sounds like a great watch!
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Satya
October 23, 2021
Is it just me, or did anyone think that the Jallianwala Bagh sequence could stand a good 10-minute trim? I don’t think we need that level of “push” to feel the trauma, even if the viewer is someone not from India.
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Macaulay Perapulla
October 24, 2021
Thanks Madan! I tried hard to imitate:)
@Satya I felt the length was justified because the movie had set up the slow burn premise effectively and it needed that explosion, in the end, to fully unleash the trauma. Given that most ongoing rewrite-the-history endeavors (in books, movies) are becoming rah-rah exercises, we have lost the ability to deal with the trauma of the past. We are carrying it, whether we like it or not, at a collective level. And so I thought it was a fantastic choice by the director to keep things muted all along, and hit you at your gut towards the end.
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Macaulay Perapulla
October 24, 2021
I am also surprised by the muted reception of the movie. Is it because the director didn’t go by the wave of the moment?
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Aman Basha
October 24, 2021
@Macaulay Perapulla: It has 9.2 on IMDb with 16k votes, the muted reception has more to do with the tone of the movie I suppose. It leaves you in shock and silence (Haven’t seen it)
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Macaulay Perapulla
October 24, 2021
I also wish the movie could have woven into its screenplay the story of Hans Raj and how he betrayed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Raj_(approver)
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hari
October 24, 2021
MP, thanks for the write up.
I echo your point 5. This is the first time I have seen a cinematic equivalent of JW Bagh massacre and I shook, I was numb, I cried.
How could fellow Indians kill fellow Indians like this. What were they thinking? How did they sleep after? Why did they not come back to help the victims? How did their lives transpire post this event? How did their family members feel about them? We need some movies to take us through these I feel.
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Anu Warrier
October 25, 2021
Looking forward to watching this. I tend to stay away from ‘nationalistic’ movies – Shaheed (1965) still makes me feel more patriotic than the spate of jingoistic narratives masquerading as patriotism today. But the fact that Shoojit Sircar is associated with this makes me hopeful about it, and I’ve been hearing such good things about the film.
Thanks, Macaulay.
Now that the video has killed the essay writer (save a few exhibition match appearances)
Something that I mourn deeply. 😦 The video reviews, because that’s the nature of the beast, do not have the same punch as his writing did.
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Satya
October 26, 2021
Given that most ongoing rewrite-the-history endeavors (in books, movies) are becoming rah-rah exercises, we have lost the ability to deal with the trauma of the past.
When we see Udham fulfilling his vow of revenge in like the first 40 minutes of the film, and after a long wait, where you can already understand what he went through, the Jallianwallah Bagh sequence appears. I don’t say no for the grit and pain, but isn’t this too extra for its own good? Udham’s resilience and the villain’s speeches in Britain can already create a mental image of the massacre which IMHO is far more scary than what unfolds.
Unlike the interrogation scenes in Visaranai which unfold with a matter-of-fact calmness (thereby making us uneasy), this was a 20 minute long punishing sequence with a gaze that forces you to look and feel again the same thing. Having said that, I also have this thought that the writer-director wanted to explain things to the audience the way Nolan does by taking their intellect for granted.
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Macaulay Perapulla
October 26, 2021
@hari Yes, This continues to confound me. At one level, whether it was Michael O’Dwyer or Reginald Dyer. They were decision-makers. But who fired those rounds? It was us.
@Anu Warrier. Yes, I too deeply mourn. The movie is a fantastic watch, and, when I look at a news item like this, it reinforces the point I mentioned above in the post. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/why-was-koozhangal-chosen-as-indias-oscar-entry/articleshow/87228798.cms?from=mdr
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hari
October 26, 2021
@MP the Britishers “made” the soldiers fire and they have made guys like Dasgupta to stay British and serve their masters as well.
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Anu Warrier
October 26, 2021
@Macaulay: What the hell was Dasgupta saying in that article?! What the hell does globalisation have to do with Sardar Udham Singh? The mind boggles at the thought that people like him sit on a jury to judge cinematic excellence.
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Macaulay Perapulla
October 27, 2021
@Satya Perhaps, you’re right. I didn’t feel the sequence to be gratuitous. For someone like me, who didn’t see cinematic depictions of Jalianwalabagh massacre until Rang De Basanti came out, I thought this was important to show the scale at which this was orchestrated. I haven’t seen movies which showed this in the 70s and 80s. In Rang De Basanti, he had shot it in a pointillistic manner. But here, we get the full picture, of course with the director’s own subjectivities. I felt this was done to show the scale more than anything else.
@Anu To me, this shows how poorly we understand the forces that have shaped our history. But, yes, today colonialism has become the favourite strawman, poorly understood though. We talk of colonialism, we think of Africa. We don’t think about ourselves.
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Ravi K
October 27, 2021
Macaulay Perapulla: “I didn’t feel the sequence to be gratuitous. For someone like me, who didn’t see cinematic depictions of Jalianwalabagh massacre until Rang De Basanti came out, I thought this was important to show the scale at which this was orchestrated. I haven’t seen movies which showed this in the 70s and 80s.”
Richard Attenborough’s “Gandhi” had a Jallianwala Bagh scene.
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Macaulay Perapulla
October 29, 2021
@Ravi K Along with Gandhi, there was a movie also called Jalianwala Bagh in 1978. I had no memory of this scene in Gandhi movie, although I had watched it in my school days. Now, I am told Karan Johar is making a movie on Sankaran Nair. This is a riveting slice of history and I am glad newer stories are coming out.
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