An action spectacle built around true story of female warriors. You know it’s going to be good when they make a film about an Indian woman.
The world, as I have been told, is not made up of things that happen by chance. If it is, then why is it still so hard to find the ‘right’ one? This is a film about love, loyalty and family.
It’s been almost exactly eight decades since the first film about the freedom fighters of India, Satyajit Ray’s famous adaptation of William T. Vollman’s novel. And yet the new film we will watch in London next week is a new adaptation of the same story, directed by a new filmmaker, Ritesh Batra.
It is set in a fictionalised version of India in 1920, when the British Empire was still strong, and it concerns a family who are caught up in a political struggle between different political factions and the families who support each.
The film is a very different beast to the adaptation Ray made nearly a century ago. For starters, the film is being made by a British filmmaker, and not an Indian filmmaker. For another, it is a much more sophisticated film. It is more about character and more about story.
The film’s stars, who are real Indians, including a former model and actress, are in the lead, but it is their two sons who give the show. Naseeruddin Shah and Deepika Padukone share screen space and the screen, and they really don’t need the rest of the cast and crew to do much.
The film does not just have its heart in the right place, it is also set in a very recognisable time and place in Indian history. But for many people, the film will have a more recognisable feeling as well.
It tells of the life of three generations of a family, the men who fought and lost the ‘war’ against the British, and the family who survived this and made their own lives.
To put it gently, the story is heavy going. The film starts at a time when India was at war with the British. When the freedom fighters went to the battlefields of the North-West Frontier. The film picks up just two years later to be told the