Batwara 1947 Movie Review:
As the opening credits in Batwara 1947 roll down, you can’t help but notice how Sunny Deol is credited — under his name, we see ‘Dharmendra’s son’ written in brackets. The modification makes sense in such a poetic and profound manner, considering Ikkis, another India-Pakistan film about longing for home and humanity, which the late legend headlined posthumously, released earlier this year. And Batwara 1947 is the kind of film Dharmendra would have been proud to see his son headline.
Batwara 1947 tells the story of Sikandar (Sunny Deol) and his family, who are alloted a huge mansion by the Pakistani government after being forced to spend many months in the refugee camps post-migration. However, there is a catch — the family is shocked to find out that the mansion is quietly occupied by an old woman Durgavati (Shabana Azmi), who is awaiting the return of her son and his family who have gone missing since the post-Partition riots. After initial reservations, Sikandar and his family embraces Durgavati as one of their own, fighting for her right to live in Pakistan, much against the objections raised by Yakub (Abhimanyu Singh), a local goon and aspiring political figure, among others.
Directors: Rajkumar Santoshi
Cast: Sunny Deol, Shabana Azmi, Preity Zinta, Abhimanyu Singh, Ali Fazal
Writers: Rajkumar Santoshi and Asghar Wajahat
Batwara 1947 is impressively aligned to the Hindi film idiom, which makes it such a powerful experience, with its emotional core deeply embedded in the ethos of mainstream Hindi cinema. If there were any doubts, Sunny Deol declares at one point that motherhood is every human's first religion, after delivering a few hefty punches (at a police station, of all places). There are plenty of action set-pieces, clearly incorporated to satisfy an average Sunny Deol fan, but they never arrive at the cost of overpowering the story’s emotional coherence. At one point, Sikandar stops himself from being angry and pleads to a local bereaucrat. This is a new, different Sunny Deol — amidst all the classic dialogue-baazi — a Sunny who lets his kind eyes do the job, a Sunny who is also an empath alongwith being a fierce protector. It’s arguably the actor’s career-best performance, an act equally fuelled by rage as sentimentality.
Interestingly, Batwara 1947 is complementary to the recently-released Main Vaapas Aaunga (MVA) in many ways. We get yet another powerful soundtrack from AR Rahman who, complemented by Javed Akhtar’s poignant lyrics this time, commits to the dramatic viscerality of the concept, letting the strings section do the heavy lifting. If in MVA, Ishar Grewal missed his home 78 years later, here we see Durgavati refusing to leave her house at first place. She perhaps already knows what it would feel like, to attempt to settle in another land that doesn't feel like home. Two months after Naseeruddin Shah delivered a masterclass, we have now his peer doyen, an equally legendary Shabana Azmi give a powerhouse of a performance. Like Naseeruddin, she is the emotional core of this film. It doesn’t take Durgavati long before she starts giving tiny suggestions to Sikandar and his family, about where to find cooking utensils, how much fare to pay the tongawalla. It’s her city, her home — and as the title goes of the play that inspired the film (Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya Woh Jamyai Nai), she believes hers is a town that must be experienced to be deemed worthy of being alive.
If the film underperforms in any manner, startingly, it’s the cinematography. It’s hard to tell Santosh Sivan photographed this, for the sheer lack of finesse and sophistication in the framing. There are more than a handful of moments where the visual mediocrity threatens to drown the powerful drama. A few scenes towards the early portions feel rushed. Some of the peripheral ensemble cast members are painfully generic.
Fortunately, the writers and the lead actors make sure to hit all the right emotional notes. Preity Zinta, as Sikandar’s wife Hamida, is effective in the few scenes that gave her due limelight. Ali Fazal, playing Habib, has a disarming earnestness that reflects in the thematic core of this story. Abhimanyu Singh understands the assignment, as reliably as ever, essaying Yakub, a threatening villain with a slightly comically demented energy, also helping the audience let our a few nervous laughs amidst such an emotionally stirring narrative.
There are a few alarming choices early on in the narrative — it takes an angry Sikh man to jolt Javed (Karan Deol) out of his peaceful era, paving his path towards bigotry. When we see Hindus refusing to shelter Sikandar’s family in Meerut early on, the driving emotion is fear, not cowardice. However, this theme comes back to haunt us at one of the most visceral moments of the film when Sikandar declares that it’s the fearful bystanders who are sometimes more dangerous than the violent beasts who want to spill blood and hatred all over. It’s a bit puzzling how both Sunny and director Rajkumar Santoshi asserted in the promotions that they aren’t trying to deliver any message. Batwara 1947 infact makes one of the most pertinent and much-needed statements for current times. It is effective and powerful, because it is timely. This is exactly what we need today — and it’s a wonder how Rajkumar Santoshi pulled this off in a way that couldn’t possibly upset or offend any community.
The message, no doubt, is delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer — but these are not the times for subtlety and artistic understatements, maybe. Maybe we need a high-decibel and growling Sunny Deol to deliver the message, which underneath all the noise, remains as poignant and vulnerable as ever. At one point, a religious priest tells Yakub, “Do not ever mix politics and religion.” No matter how badly it gets delivered, doesn’t it still remain a line that all of us need to hear right now?
