Gadar - Ek Prem Katha (2001)
Starring: Sunny Deol, Amisha Patel, Amrish Puri
Director: Anil Sharma
Music Director: Uttam Singh
Synopsis: A sickening attempt at exploiting one of the worst ever human tragedies
Reviewed by: Faiz Khan

 

Anil Sharma, the man behind such dreadful fare as Hukumat and Elaan-e-Jang, this time attempts something rather more ambitious—a love story set against the horrors of Partition. The film opens with a genuinely powerful and distressing twenty-minute prologue in which the terrible events of 1947 are recreated. The Pakistani Muslims are depicted as bloodthirsty villains slaughtering innocent Hindus attempting to flee to India. Trainloads of butchered bodies arrive across the border, provoking equally savage reprisals by enraged Sikhs and Hindus who descend upon the Muslims remaining in India.

During one such rampage, Sakina (Amisha Patel) is separated from her family and is about to be butchered by a mob of blood-crazed Sikhs when truck driver Tara Singh (Sunny Deol) comes to her rescue. To save her life, he hastily smears sindoor into the parting of her hair, transforming her, at least in appearance, from a "Musalmani" into a married Sikh woman. It is a desperate ruse, but it succeeds. Believing that her entire family has perished while travelling to Pakistan, Sakina remains behind in India and gradually builds a new life with Tara. The two eventually marry and have a son.

Years later, however, Sakina discovers that her family is in fact alive and living in Pakistan. Crossing the border to reunite with them, she soon realises that she has effectively become a prisoner, her family refusing to allow her to return to her Sikh husband and child. It is now left to Tara Singh to march into Pakistan and blast, punch and roar his way through an army of villains to rescue the woman he loves.

It is all high melodrama and, unsurprisingly, a film that many Pakistanis would understandably find deeply offensive. Having said that, it would be somewhat hypocritical to become too indignant given that our own film industry has frequently portrayed Indians as grotesque caricatures of evil over the years. In fact, the basic premise bears more than a passing resemblance to a reverse version of the recent Lollywood smash Tere Pyar Mein.

Politics aside, Gadar is essentially a typical Bollywood masala entertainer filled with fantastical situations and impossible heroics. Strip away the Partition backdrop and what remains is simply another Anil Sharma revenge drama draped in an aggressively nationalistic cloak. I found much of it both insulting and deeply distasteful, not merely because of its depiction of Pakistanis but because it attempts to legitimise its fantasy by attaching itself to one of the darkest and most painful chapters in the shared history of India and Pakistan. The opening passages are undeniably impressive, but the film quickly degenerates into an increasingly implausible and overblown spectacle where realism is sacrificed entirely in favour of patriotic chest-beating.

Sunny Deol gives a solid performance as Tara Singh and carries the film with conviction, even when the screenplay asks him to perform increasingly absurd feats of heroism. Amisha Patel has the sort of role every newcomer would dream of, although one cannot help feeling that a more experienced actress might have extracted considerably greater emotional depth from the character. Nevertheless, she acquits herself reasonably well. Uttam Singh's music is surprisingly ordinary and fails to leave much of an impression.

Anil Sharma directs with confidence and certainly succeeds in creating a hugely crowd-pleasing spectacle for his target audience. Whether one admires or deplores the politics is another matter entirely, but there can be little doubt that the film's relentless Pakistan-bashing struck a chord with audiences at the time. Frankly, if anyone considered Pukar offensive, they should take a look at Gadar, which takes matters to an altogether different level by portraying India's neighbour as little more than a nation populated by murderous barbarians.

A film that I honestly find impossible to rate. One to avoid.