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Director: Nandita Das
Actors do not usually make good directors, because they are incapable of seeing the bigger picture. Nandita Das has managed an exemplary switch with her debut feature : `Firaaq’ is a nuanced, moving exploration of life and loss.
The plot is deceptively simple, told with effective simplicity. It is just another day in the life of a handful of characters struggling to come to terms with the horror of the Gujarat genocide. Old `ustaad’ Khan Saheb ( Naseer), and his faithful companion Karim ( Raghubir) wonder if the sound of a `raag’ will ever reverberate again in their house. Sanjay ( Paresh) is an unapologetic defender of the Hindu right, getting off , in equal measure, on looting shops and slapping his wife ( Deepti). Half-and-half Sameer Shaikh ( Sanjay) is on the verge of fleeing to Delhi, where he thinks his mixed parentage won’t cause him as much grief. An auto-rickshaw driver and his wife ( Shahana) come back to their tiny room, to find it vandalized. And a little child wanders through the dark night, looking for his lost father : the rest of his family was slain during the riots.
The real strength of the film lies in the way the director manages to say it like it is. Das pulls no punches as she lays out her characters, and articulates their points of view without descending into mawkishness or melodrama. Khan Saheb sings a dirge for times past, and points out the distressing disconnect of today’s `Musalmaan’ with `mausiki’. Sanjay’s corrosive mutterings, directed at the hated other, is reflective not only of individual bigotry, but of the accumulation of the collective venom in the social fabric of a city which allows rioters and rapists to roam free, and the police to chase a terrified resident and lead him to his death. And we all know people like the conflicted Sameer, whose supportive wife ( Tisca) is as anguished as he is about his feeling neutered : `Mera naam Sameer Desai hai’, he tells a couple of `chanda’-collecting saffronites, using his wife’s surname as a shield.
This is a fine ensemble. The little boy, played unfalteringly by Mohammad Samad, is a heartbreaker. Naseer and Paresh and Raghubir inhabit their characters with an ease only the really good ones exhibit. Deepti Naval, always such a pleasure to watch in her rare appearances on screen these days, holds her own in her small but pivotal part : her continual subservience and her final rebellion feels achingly real. And fittingly signals the rise of a new day, and perhaps, a new way.
Gentle viewers, listen up : a director is born.
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Dear Nandita,Let me begin by saying that I have been a fan of your work ever since I watched 1947 Earth. Your performance was stunning and has been so in all the movies you have acted in. You bring a certain 'believability' to your character and they are amazingly easy to relate to.Your direction brought out the same in each frame and riding on the formidable cast, every scene seemed,oh so real. The thing that actually disturbs me was the subject and its treatment.What happened was horrible and there's no denying that. But it also seems to be a safe bet for debut, given your CV. Who wouldn't expect you to make a sensitive movie about the wrongs of our society. But should it really have been the topic? It happened long back and honestly,insensitive as it might sound, I don't want to be reminded of that.I had hoped that you would deliver a certain 'other perspective'. But there was none. It was just about the cruelty on the Muslims and the way they coped with them.I do agree tha
A beautiful movie made on a difficult subject in a very sensitive, confident and straight-forward manner. We need to hear these (post-godhra) stories a thousand times to remind us how unpardonable those incidents were. Yes, hindus are tolerant, but definitely not those who perpetrated the genocide and re-elected a government that supported it. Nandita, I look forward to your next movie.
The movie is a documentary.It has become fashionable now-a-days to make a movie on underbelly of India/or such riot issues,show it them in some international film festival,obviously the foreigners get interested rather amused and give award,then come and release in India.Piece of bull shit - although what happened in gujarat riots to muslims is highly deplorable......So also is doing business on such movies( fire,earth,Air,Water,Fire....etc..etc).The end of the mvie is abrubt and all viewers are surprised that movie is over.A very childish and unprofessional direction.Nandita shud stick to acting.....not that she acts well but looks pretty and hot.
nandita das one more person added to a community woes.i am immensely moved by these people potrayal of hindu atrocities.some hindu women now are taking getting pride in bashing every hindu of the country.they are getting married to muslims in large numbers like srk,ak,md azhar and others.well is it a curse that our grt hindu mothers give birth to such girls or we the hindu boys a curse for our hindu mothers.i am in a dilemma.Am i getting transformed from a normal human to a religious hardline because of potrayals as such by people as nandita das.Tthey have their own ambition but they are hitting our psyche by creating movies in which every time a hindu is depicted as a satan.Well hindus please dont react and keep your calm.Your community is one of the most tolerant.
Nanandita I openly challenge you to make a film on the miserable conditions of kashmiri pandits, or make a thriller of how fiends planned and executed laxmananda swami and the krishna devout old lady, or what happened to the survivors of the hindus burnt to death in the train or shot dead by your pakistani friends. Do you have the guts....ofcourse I am not in a position to add anything to your bank balance either cash or black oil........nivaas
Wonder how much was paid to get 'favourable' reviews from these self-designated film critics. It's another pretentious film that the candle-vigil brigade will lap up because it's the done thing.
Will Nandita Das dare to make film on Nandigram
I think gents who have commented belwo were also part of killing mobs thats why they are justifying it...well done guys but you should realise islamic terrorism is not state sponsored but in this case it was state assisted just liek hitler did...oh may be you like hitler as well...anywasy ur bloo dis corrupt...we shud feel sorry for all hindu and muslim but come out against the govt who supported it..but u are scoundrels i know and u wont do that
This is yet another film that follows the now familiar theme:Muslims = innocent victims yearning for the sound of "raags"Hindus = hate-spewing, shop-burning, wife-beating fanatics.I fully expect this film to pick up several awards. Also, it is no surprise that it was released just before elections.
It is because of pusine minded people like Nandita Das,Burqua Dutt,Teesta Setalvad,Mrunalini,Sarabhai, who have been squarely responsible for spreading hatred and communalisim,paracholisim,regionlism tirade in the country.These so called destroyers of democracy for handfull of gold pledged their services to foreigners to belittle the Country and the Hindus in particular.Otherwise how come these pseudo intellectuals overlooked deliberately the burning of 59 innoceant Hindu ladies and children just because of their beng Hindus as if the said carnage of train was the result of the riots!Such false premises in mind these people are can never be honest to themselves.If BJP can be named non secularist by what name they paint Sharad Power,Mulayansing,Amarsing,Lalloo,Paswan,Reddy,Karat,Digvijasing and others like them when they openly spreading hatred on the bbasis of regionalism,parachiolism which are against the very baisis of the tenets of the Constitution and punishable with penalty! .
Will Nandita Das dare to make film on Nandigram progrom or Delhi Sikh riots??
I know what this movie is going to portray as it is a product from a sudo-secularist or publisity mogering Das!Now a days, its been a trick used to become popular( making money ) by just exposing themselves as sudo-secularists( support/apease minorities ). Unless the people understand these sudo-secularist's true nature, they will do all this non-sense continue dump people!
Our sincere social activist Nandita has done a good job for humanity. Thanks. I have a simple question which bothers me whenever our secular friends berate Hindus for their alleged demonic trait of killing Muslims and Christians at random. It is a known fact that one third of killed in Gujarat riots were Hindus. It is well known fact that the riots erupted because 50 Hindus were burnt alive in train bogey. So, sense of natural justice - if it were a plain cry for humanity - would tell us that atleast one or two of the portrayed families could be Hindus (plight of two girls left orphaned in train fire)or a Hindu family left alone after riots to fend for itself etc. etc.?
I think Bengalis suffer from short memory and poor eyesight, otherwise Nandita Das would have made a movie about Noakhali. One can open eyes of intelligent person, but there is no cure for stupidity.
So much slaughter of innocent Hindus by islamic fanatics in last 5 years. Genocide of Hindus in Kashmir, but for the desi snobs in our countrty everything stops at Gujarat riots. these movies are nothing else but propoganda machines for terror recruits in jehadi camps, which the people who produce these movies themselves know, with a purpose some people know.