Well yesterday I was at my favorite Indian movie rental place and he had no new Hindi movies that had come in that looked interesting this week, but I saw this Panjaabii movie, so I thought I would give it a try. I thought that this movie was very well done from a historical standpoint.
*It is another sad story from the Panjaab involving the upheaval that occured back in the mid to late 1980’s. Apparently if the movie gives us a true sense of what happened, the police were given to much power to violate the human rights of the citizens of the Panjaab to crack down on Siikh separatists.
*The movie tells the plight of one family whose son is arrested because a bag of weapons was left at his house when a group of separitists had barged into their home demanding to be fed and sheltered in the middle of one night.
*The police found out almost immediately and they then found the bag containing a rifle and some other devices. Of course they take the son, who is a patriotic farmer type at that point who would not think of leaving for abroad, and even though the cops knew he knew nothing, they torture him. He spends 10 days in the hospital when he is finally released. But of course he is arrested again when the cops are pressured to arrest everyone who has any kind of record after an incident involving a bus.
*So, this time he and even his sister who resisits the head cop’s sexual advances, wind up being tortured in lock up for many days or weeks, it was hard to say. The parents are elderly and devastated.
*Innocent people are being shot in the back to fulfill some horrific quota on terrorists. I could never imagine how bad things could be in a democratic country like India, but this really was an appalling violation of human rights on a grand scale.
I will not go into more of the plot details, but I think this was a very engaging movie. It gives you a lot of food for thought on what a state with unchecked police power can do to its citiizens. It is a watch for anyone who feels they could be the next target of such outrageous atrocities.
I think the actors did a fine job, it was a much more realistic movie than most BW ones and the topic is tragic but so important when it comes to thinking about who has a right to live in this world and who doesn’t have any rights at all.
Juhi Chawla was also in it and I was impressed with her performance. I did not know the other actors though they all were very good.