In recent years, we’ve seen a slew of films, whether overly dramatic biopics or excessive patriotic melodramas, come out with the same ridiculous blueprint to appeal to a specific audience. Some are excellent, others are below ordinary, and the majority are intolerable due to their strange visual effects and whatsapp status unique love songs that no one requested! In this suffocating state of biographical films, a cinematic revolution was desperately needed to shatter the menacing prototype skeleton; Shoojit Sircar delivered it with a masterstroke titled Sardar Udham!
Despite the film’s premise, I didn’t anticipate it to entirely and expertly escape the standard Bollywood biography-making pattern! I’m not sure what to say about this technically outstanding work. Everything was extremely technical, from the color and cinematography to the reconstruction of historically exact events; from the magnificent score to the flaming narrative; everything.
When you have a compelling tale and technical personnel on the job, you don’t need any forcibly produced emotional sequences or jingoistic speech. To explain the acts, the rawness of the effort should be seen. The same was done by the director. He maintained the raw tone and dealt with it in a straightforward manner.
With some decision-making, the film did incredibly well. One of the key reasons for the film’s unique vibe is the use of local languages rather than Hindi with an unnatural accent. The method of telling the narrative was also genuine. Special mention goes to the reproduction of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre; it was so accurate, raw, and heartbreaking that we felt like we were there!
Vicky Kaushal put another feather to his cap with his performance as Udham Singh, which was poised, mature, and breathtaking. The supporting casts were fantastic and perfectly cast. The unbiased character development was also excellent. In fact, there was very little to criticise in this wonderfully made film.
Sardar Udham, directed by Shoojit Sircar, is the only biographical film to come out of Bollywood in recent years that has been able to break the mould and set a standard that will undoubtedly usher in a new era of serious filmmaking free of the economic model! Remarkable.