Film Review: Gadar - Ek Prem Katha

THE OTHER much-awaited mega release of this week, director Anil Sharma's ``Gadar - Ek Prem Katha'' aims to convey the angst of the companion left behind. And the incessant endeavour to unite beyond religious and geographical divide. The film promises a lot, fulfils a lot less.

It is the nth love story of a girl and a guy practising different faiths - in this case a Muslim girl Sakeena and a Sikh, Tara Singh. The guy loses his all - parents, brothers, sisters and everyone who matter because the men who matter at the moment take to the sword to settle a political dispute. The girl loses all - because the men who wield the gun now have vendetta on their minds. The guy is gallant, the girl helpless. Matter enough for, well, the chivalrous to arise, awake, unite and tide over the crises.

After murder and mayhem, pillage and plunder, there is time for rain, romance, revelry. First refuge, then home. First hostility, then homeliness. As Sakeena sets about building her life afresh with Tara Singh, life is a romp in the playful fields of Punjab. But only for a brief while.

The duo is married all right. But the hostility is not quite nipped in the marital bed. There is the honour of Sikhs to be avenged. There is the pride of Khans at stake. Amid all this the only losers are the love-birds. Cliched, did one say? Well, it is, but Anil Sharma's film manages to hold interest frame to frame in the first half. And then starts a slide which takes it inexorably first towards pulp patriotism, then jingoism and climaxes very near xenophobia.

``Gadar'' is no ``Train to Pakistan'' or even a consistently poignant tale of love across the border. It makes a promising beginning. In the end, however, it falls frightfully short. In times of peace, this is disturbing. And focussing on disturbing times, it is unlikely to bring about peace. With contemporaniety. Or history.

In a film on parting and Partition, the message of peace has to be paramount. But it is in its message of peace that Anil Sharma's film fails - piece by piece. His approach to matters of love and war is piecemeal.

However, even as Sunny Deol sleep walks through his part of a rough and tough Sikh, it is Amisha Patel who manages to hold interest as the shy, beautiful Sakeena. She conveys the grace of a callisthenist, poise of a gymnast and silently communicates the charm of innocence. She evokes both fear and pity by bringing alive the vulnerability of the meek who bring up the earth under the feet of the mighty.

ZIYA US SALAM

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Section  : Entertainment
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