Hi everyone!
Welcome back to Worldwide Wednesdays! No new Netflix Original international films this week, at least not in time for distribution today. We’ll be back on Saturday with a doozy of a story, but for other films from India, check out “Love Per Square Foot” (Episode #052), “Sometimes” (Episode #136), “Lust Stories” (Episode #168), and “Brij Mohan Amar Rahe” (Episode #220). And if you have any favorites, especially from this year, let me know at onemoviepunch.com.
And now...
Today’s movie is “Raazi” (2018), the Zee Studios historical thriller directed by Meghna Gulzar and written for the screen in collaboration with Bhavani Iyer. The film follows Sehmat (Alia Bhatt), a young Indian woman who is married to a Pakistani man, but is also a Kashmiri spy, just before the outbreak of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. The film follows the efforts of Sehmat to acquire workable intelligence while not compromising herself or her marriage.
Spoilers ahead.
Nationalist cinema is popping up around the world, lately. Sure, we might like to call some of it “patriotic” when we agree with the politics, but make no mistake, patriotism and nationalism are two sides of the same coin, and it is the currency of privileged. International cinema (for me, outside the United States) provides a gateway into seeing and understanding nationalist cinema for what it is. Today’s movie is a form of Indian nationalist cinema, focusing on a fictionalized version of a real intelligence agent that infiltrated the highest levels of Pakistani leadership for the benefit of India. It uses heavy-handed dialogue about putting country before yourself on both sides, and if it were about a US agent infiltrating say the Russian or Chinese government, as in Jack Ryan, many US viewers would be cheering. However, I don’t have any direct ties to either India or Pakistan, and when viewing the same story about two other nations, one begins to see just how closely nationalism and patriotism are.
Of course, you’re not here for a political lecture, but a movie review. However, I think speaking a bit about nationalist cinema is important, because aside from the overt nationalism in the dialogue, I thought the film was solid from start to finish, even if a bit slow. Meghna Gulzar does an excellent job bringing this fictionalized account to life, leveraging Alia Bhatt’s rendition of Sehmat to tell a very complicated story, one that shows not just an insider’s look at the Pakistani military dictatorship, but also how easily women were dismissed as almost pretty background fixtures. The premise of marrying an Indian daughter to a Pakistani military officer may seem like an invitation for espionage, but we have to also remember that when the British finally left the area, they arbitrarily separated the region into countries based on location and religion, tearing apart communities where Hinduism and Islam had previous coexisted, and stirring up new nationalist identities based around religion. The relationship between Indian Agent Hidayat Khan (Rajit Kapoor) and Pakistani Brigadier Parvez Syed (Shishir Sharma) had been long-standing, and based upon trust that has dissolved since partition. I tried not to let hindsight get in the way of the supposed realism of this character.
The film has great set choices, costumes, and for the few action-oriented scenes, great effects. Gulzar does a great job with transitions, and especially with a moving scene of teaching Pakistani army children a, you guessed it, very nationalist song, which has a subtle reprise later. I thought the film was well paced, but was exceedingly long at two hours and eighteen minutes. It is also, as mentioned before, an exceedingly nationalist work of cinema, which reduces the complex history of the region in the lead up to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, and the establishment of Bangladesh as a separate country. I wouldn’t say it’s a good work to explain the politics of the time, but it is definitely a nice entry into a deeper study of the region.
“Raazi” (2018) is an engaging Indian political thriller with overt nationalist themes, focusing on a chaotic time in the region leading up to war. Meghna Gulzar delivers a solid film outside of the nationalist themes, with a great cast and excellent composition. Fans of historical or political thrillers should definitely check out this film, but be ready to be reminded over and over again to put country before yourself, and maybe start to understand what that actually means in today’s world.
Rotten Tomatoes: 100%
Metacritic: NR
One Movie Punch: 7.6/10
“Raazi” (2018) is not rated and is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
