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Bollywood’s efforts at depicting wars have ended in cheap, run-of-the-mill patriotic drivel with the usual song-and-dance routine, writes Shakuntala Rao
FIELD Marshal Sam Manekshaw died this past June. He was 94 at the time of his death, a well-recognised war hero having spent 40 years in the Indian armed forces and, most spectacularly, leading India to victory in the war of 1971. It is hard to believe that a man of his stature and repute hasn’t had a single film made about his life. But such is the bleak history of Bollywood war movies. The war movie as a genre came directly from Hollywood’s World War II efforts where the main aim was to garner support for the war thematically promoting patriotism in the face of enemy aggression. General George Patton’s story is well told in the classic film, Patton, as are famous battles in films like Bridge on the River Kwai,The Longest Day and Tora! Tora! Tora!. While it was easier to make films about World War II with a classic ‘good vs evil’ setting, things changed with the Vietnam War where the American military suffered heavy human losses and a stinging defeat. Films that followed, Coming Home, Deer Hunter, and Casualties of War, were far more complicated sagas about the brutality of a protracted and bloody war. With the war in Iraq, Hollywood may have finally seen an end to the Ramboesque action flicks. For example, Brian de Palma’s Redacted is a fact-based drama about US soldiers who rape and kill a 15-year-old Iraqi girl; director Gavin Hood’s film Rendition is about the CIA torture of a man suspected to be a terrorist; a gamut of such films are dramatically changing the nature and focus of war movies. One must admit that making war movies is a bit tricky for the Indian audiences who don’t appreciate killing off their heroes and where heroes are expected to win against all odds. But unlike Hollywood, the Hindi film industry doesn’t have much of a track record in portraying wars or war heroes. One can argue that India has neither waged as many wars, nor invaded countries but this is not to say that we haven’t had our share of armed conflicts. Unfortunately, Bollywood’s efforts at depicting wars have ended in cheap jingoistic flicks such as LoC Kargil, Deewar, Lal Salam, and Ab Tumhaare Hawwale Watan Saathiyo to name a few. But these are run-of-the-mill patriotic drivel with the usual song-and-dance routine, a little love story thrown in for the teary-eyed teens, and peppered images of the perennial Sikh soldier waving the tricolour. Yet, there is hope. A little known gem of a film called 1971garnered scarce box office draw (but critical attention at international film festivals) when it was released in 2007. Directed by Amrit Sagar, starring Manoj Bajpai and Ravi Kishan, the story was set in 1977, six years after the India-Pakistan war had officially ended, and revolves around six prisoners of war (PoWs). As Pakistan claimed no Indian prisoners, several men were lodged in a remote Pakistani camp. With chances of reparation fast fading and after years of living in inhumane conditions, they decide to make an escape. As the film unfolds, one is in rapture of their courage, sacrifice, and death. While it was not billed as a true-story, it is the first time that Mumbai cinema had taken a touchy subject such as PoWs and given us a glimpse of their experiences of loneliness and humiliations. As we mourn his death, we must acknowledge that Manekshaw’s life was made of a thousand stories yet to be told. Will Mumbai film industry please honour him and our war veterans and dead by making intelligent movies about them?
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