I was wondering why it was taking such a long time to bring up a movie on the sikh riots, specially if you see already movies have been made on the gujarat riots and the bombay riots. Well they finally made it however it is sans any political overtones.I would loved to see one exposing the culprits.
Amu centers around the controversial 1984 riots that took place in Delhi after Indira Gandhi?s assassination. Kaju (Konkona Sensharma) is an NRI who comes to India ’’in search of her roots’’. With the help of her nerdy friend Kabir (Ankur Khanna), she visits the slums of Delhi where her biological parents died in a malaria epidemic in 1984. But during her quest to find her mysterious origins, she stumbles upon some dark secrets of her life which Keya (Brinda Karat), the social worker who adopted her, has been hiding from her.
She found out that her father and younger brother was a victim of the riot, her mother after fighting through the trauma of losing her husband and son, gave up at last and committed suicide; leaving Amu alone to herself. Amu was thus adopted by Keya who was a social worker helping the displaced sikhs in post riot relief camps.
Kudos to writer-director Shonali Bose for having the audacity to make some bold statements on the apathy of the authorities during the riots. The best part of the film is that it focuses on the trials and tribulations of one family thereby avoiding excessive the blood and gore one normally sees in riot based scripts. The scene where a Sikh man is made to cut his hair and the burning down of Amu?s house are realistically executed.
What the movie lacks is a tight screenplay especially Kabir?s track which is irrelevant to the story. There is a slight overdose of Bengali culture as well. Of the cast, Ankur Khanna looks like a dud and acts like one. Konkona Sensharma cracks her not-so-challenging role with ease but it’s Brinda Karat who is the best among the lot. Amu is a brave film, which devoid of any naach gaana, big stars or dishum-dishum, features one major ingredient that’s missing in most commercial ventures: a decent storyline.
Well, if you wish to have a no song, no dance, peaceful, calm and meaningful movie, I suggest this movie. The movie tries to bring out the wounds itched in the Indian history and with a message that perhaps we will have a way to heal those old wounds. It also brings out the criss-crossed interwinded system of the society where everybody was involved, from a local thug to the police to the politicians.
The movie ended with an announcement on TV about the Gujarat riot in the recent past, 2002, so it is a vicious circle and it goes on and on. By the way, the movie is in 90% english and some bits and pieces of hindi, bengali in between.