I have been reading with great interest all the reviews on this movie. Most of them are quite comprehensive so I am not going to write a detailed review on the music, direction, cinematography or acting. I am commenting on just the content.
I remember when I decided to watch the movie, it was primarily because from all that I heard about it, it was a ’different’ film. Different to many people is a dirty word, it is difficult to accept difference, come to terms with it and, hardest of all, to understand it. Difference does not scare me so much, in fact it compels me challenge myself and hopefully grow in the process.
So I watched Swades. By that time, I was familiar with the oft-repeated oneliner about it...an NRI returns home to change the country (eventually I suppose). While I agree with most of the reviewers here saying that it is toooo long could have been a much crisper and shorter film...I was particularly saddened by the content of the film. Since this is undoubtedly a film about the issues it is fair to comment on the way the issues have been portrayed and dealt with.
First, It is quite presumptuous of the protagonist to think that he knows whats best for the people of that village and that he impose his urban middle class values upon the villagers. I work in a social organisation and I know of the work of many other such organisations that claim to be the catalysts of change and social transformation. The most successful initiatives to improve the lives of the majority of the population in any area on any social or economic parameter were led by the disempowered people themselves. Yes, they need some resources, some motivation and the opening up of a space to express themselves to each other and the powers that be. But the components and design of the change has to be devised by them. Their participation is crucial in their emancipation, be they unorganised workers, women or children. And it is just laughable that a person like me, a city bred, English speaking, upper class woman would have the first clue about what a rural Dalit woman wants, how she thinks, what her problems are and what is the most appropriate solutions for these problems.
Second, change of any kind, especially related to caste relations, takes ages to manifest. We have been working in an area that fares better in the socio-economic ratings than the protagonist’s village but even still questioning the governing ’customs’, ’traditions’ and shades of thinking there, no matter how injurious they are to certain sections of the population, generates an enormous backlash and loss of goodwill. It takes years of hard work, building relationships, initiating dialogues, creating spaces, overcoming fears, spreading information and awareness and understanding the causes of these practices before any real perceptible change is experienced.
Third, the whole drive to send children to school is misinformed. Mohan would have better served the nation if he had worked for education reform rather than pushing children into hellholes of domination, discrimination and dreariness. I am not going to relate the umpteen problems of the current education system but suffice it to say that adding to the already giddy numbers of educated unemployed youth hell bent on a white collar job that does not exist is not going to lead to any long-term solution for anyone.
Still, this movie did make me think and for that I am eternally grateful to the director. We certainly do need more movies like this...we do need to be shaken up to think and more than that, to act.