Tag: Movie Review

‘Dhurandhar Has its Flaws But it is Neither Propaganda Nor Islamophobic’

By Lokmarg

Gaurav Rathore, a movies buff from Delhi-NCR, says the violence in Aditya Dhar’s movie did not appear random or celebratory to him. His views:

I went into Dhurandhar after reading a lot of strong opinions about it. Words like gory, misogynistic, Islamophobic, propaganda movie were being thrown around so confidently that it felt like the verdict was already out. Watching the film for myself, I came out of the theatre with a feeling that while the movie was not without it flaws, those labels don’t fully—or fairly—describe what it is trying to convey.

The film is violent, no doubt about it. But it’s violent in the same way Sandeep Vanga Reddy’s Animal is: both rely heavily on hyper-masculinity to tell their story. These are worlds driven by anger, ego, loyalty, machismo and revenge. That tone won’t work for everyone, as it has a distinct genre and that’s okay. What is cinema without variety!

Moreover, the violence in Dhurandhar didn’t appear either random or celebratory to me. It was entwined with the plot, as part of the environment its characters are trapped in. You are not really meant to enjoy it as much as endure it.

Like Animal, Dhurandhar treats its villains almost like black holes. Once they enter the story, everything starts revolving around them. Scenes, emotions, even the pacing get pulled into their orbit. It’s an interesting choice because it shows how one dangerous personality can distort an entire world. Whether you like that approach or not, it’s clearly intentional—not careless, filmmaking.

The criticism around misogyny did not hold. The accusation appears a made-up charge which I failed to detect in the entire three-and-half hour run. The film does not present women either as symbols or as ideals. Instead, it shows them navigating a deeply flawed, male-dominated system. Some may get hurt by it, some compromise, some resist in their own ways. That may be uncomfortable to watch, but discomfort isn’t the same as endorsement. Not every film needs to provide empowerment in neat, uplifting arcs.

As for the Islamophobia charge, I think it’s being applied too broadly. The film shows extremist characters who are Muslim, but it doesn’t paint an entire community or faith as the enemy. There are Muslim characters who are victims, witnesses, and people just trying to live their lives. The film focuses more on ideology and violence than religion itself. Condemning a movie for showing radicalisation without looking at the context feels unfair to my mind.

Dhurandhar isn’t a perfect film. It’s loud, messy, and often exhausting. But it doesn’t feel like propaganda to me. It feels like a filmmaker has choosen a certain aggressive style and has left it to the audience to make up their own mind. You don’t have to like it—but dismissing it with big labels Islamophoic or misogynist shuts down a conversation that’s worth having.

As told to Deepti Sharma

Bound by Discrimination, ‘Homebound’ is a Dark Tale of an Ugly India

By Ankit Khanna

It is easy to review a badly made film. A reviewer’s armoury, much like a thousand eyes, is full of ballistic weapons to tear through a shoddy work. But every once in a while comes a film like Homebound that stumps you and instead of a critique you end up writing a love song about it.

Homebound is a language agnostic film, but since the backdrop is the Hindi heartland it will qualify as a Hindi movie. In that sense, it adds value to Hindi cinema with an immensely courageous theme that dares to expose all the fault-lines of the Indian society. It dares to enter a domain where the commercial, mainstream, escapist Hindi cinema fears to tread.

It tells the story of two friends, Mohammad Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter) and Chandan Kumar Valmiki (Vishal Jethwa) who represent what it means to be a Muslim and a Dalit in India. Both the friends have their own share of social inequity, lack of opportunities, unfulfilled dreams and the desire to break the unending cycle of injustices engulfing their youth. Both aspire for a little dignity in their lives, sadly beyond their reach.

Their friendship, unlike the Jai-Viru-esque Bollywood male bonding is grounded. They have a bond of friendship untouched by the toxicity engulfing their surroundings. They have their disagreements, disappointments but all that is transient – borne out of their frustrations and outweighed by their mutual affection beyond the binaries.

The duo are forced by circumstances to leave their native lands, work as labourers in an urban factory, and are at the threshold of a dignified existence… when COVID strikes. The ensuing lockdown leaves them with no option but to take an arduous journey back home.

Ishaan Khatter delivers a stellar performance by embracing and remaining in the skin of his character, so has Vishal Jethwa. However, Ishaan’s emotionally-charged act at the loss of his friend was the high point of the film that may leave the audience in tears. Jahanvi Kapoor (Sudha) does well for her role but leaves no mark; her appearance is more as an attempt to add some glamour quotient to a theatrical release.

The film has successfully documents the havoc wreaked on the lives of migrant workers after the first COVID lockdown. The issues of caste, religion, gender, unemployment, migration, appalling apathy, lack of empathy –the film ticks all the boxes, but not the ones that a typical formula film would. It’s a much-needed reminder that holds a mirror to Bharat, in all its ugliness.

In the end, when you’re going through the credits, you notice that the Homebound team had Martin Scorcsese as the executive producer. His involvement in the film was kept a secret and he was simply referred to as the ‘elder brother’ on the sets. Of course, his mentorship added value to the film, but director, Neeraj Ghaywan and his team deserve a standing ovation for simply attempting to make this courageous film.

The credits will also tell you that the film is based on Basharat Peer’s New York Times story – on Mohammad Saiyub Siddiqui (Shoaib) and Amrit Prasad (Chandan), an excellent piece of journalism on the COVID lockdown and the toll it took on the marginalised.

‘Homebound’ brings Amrit and Saiyub’s friendship back to life through characters that are so beautifully written that one wonders: Did the real Saiyub and Amrit appear for the constabulary exams? Did Saiyub quit his sales job because of the Pakistani jabs hurled at him? Was Amrit ashamed of identifying himself as an SC quota candidate or did he have a ‘Sudha’ in his life? And when Amrit is dying, was he thinking about his mother’s cracked heels?

We don’t know if all of it really happened, but what we do know is that ‘Homebound’ represents the dreams and aspirations of millions of invisible Indians. Their dreams do take flight, only to come crashing at the behest of the privileged. It’s a commentary on sad rather tragic ways of Indian society, its inherent unfair practices and its polity.

Even though the film deserves accolades beyond the festival circuit, its box office performance turned out to be disappointing, amid the reports of the film struggling to get enough screens and non-grave-hour show-timings. This, despite the backing of Dharma Productions.

It may finally reach its rightful audiences with it being streamed on Netflix. The dismal performance at the Box Office will again give masala filmmakers an excuse and ammunition that Indian audiences are still not ready for such cinema, which could be true. And they will happily get the licence to keep producing below par escapist cinema. In the meanwhile with ‘Homebound’ Neeraj Ghaywan has set such a high bar for himself (after his debut film, ‘Masaan’) one only hopes that he can further keep raising it up.