Cinema India, Dec. 17, 2004
IANS
Bollywood]: Film: "Swades"; Starring Shah Rukh Khan, Gayatri
Joshi, Kishori Ballal; Screenplay and direction by Ashutosh Gowariker.
Somewhere in a village in northern India, a train brings the troubled
protagonist Mohan Bhargava chugging to a halt at a godforsaken station.
A little boy runs along screaming, "Water for 25 paise."
Mohan, who has never touched anything but mineral water in India, buys
the water...probably contaminated but still water that belongs to his
soil, his country....
The life-defining moment in Ashutosh Gowariker's eagerly awaited follow-up
to "Lagaan" is so sincerely sublime and so intricately poignant
that it brings to mind some of the most tragic interludes on the vicissitudes
of Indian poverty, as seen in Satyajit Ray's "Pather Panchali"
and Bimal Roy's "Do Bigha Zameen".
"Swades" is a unique experiment with grassroots realism.
It is so politically correct in its propagandist message that initially
you wonder if the government of India funded the director's dream.
But, no, this neo-classic, conceived and designed as the great Indian
journey into the heart and soul of poverty, is funded entirely by Gowariker's
idealism.
It's a work that's as simple, lucid and lyrical as a tune sung in repose
by that minstrel who sings not because he must but because he knows
no other thing.
There's an enchanting intimacy to "Swades" that invites you
in without trying. The plot is so obvious that you wonder why an ambitious,
commercial behemoth like Gowariker would want to make a film about a
young, highly successful Indian expatriate's rediscovery of his roots!
Once the director sets off on this journey of self-discovery with his
protagonist, he doesn't flinch from the sheer transparency of his familiar
yet fascinating tale. Often in this long and finally deeply fulfilling
voyage you wonder what could possibly have prompted the director to
make a film that doesn't pull any punches, resorts to no gimmicks and
chooses to stay supine at a time when cinema has become hysterically
over the top.
As Mohan takes a homesick journey from his cushy job in NASA in the
US to a village near Delhi to meet up with his foster-mother (Kishori
Ballal), we often finds him in situations that could eminently qualify
as clichés on patriotism.
But "Swades" avoids being a 3-hour-15-minute long flag of
nationalism.
There're hardly any hysterical highs (not counting the grand moment
when Mohan unleashes water-generated electricity) or looming lows in
the storytelling.
The format adopted by Gowariker is akin to a TV soap. Life flows effortlessly
and fluently along with the multitude of characters creating an elaborate
drama conveying the opposite of the two other notable NRI-returned-home
films "Pardes" and "Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge"
with Shah Rukh Khan in the lead.
If the other two films were giddy, glamorous celebrations of patriotism,
"Swades" is far more austere and comprehensive in its view
of India's acute need to recognise its weaknesses and strengths and
act accordingly...and urgently.
Parts of the film are patently polemical. Gowariker stops the narration
to let Mohan lecture the characters on why we as a country haven't been
able to provide food and education at the grassroots level. The passionate
dialogues by K.P. Saxena ring true even when their righteousness threatens
to pitch the words from the pulpit.
Gowariker isn't scared of his idealism getting the better of his cinematic
impulses. It doesn't adopt any of the technical methodologies that a
multimillion epic must necessarily adopt in order to spin a marketable
web of eyeball-arresting images.
"Swades" is, in fact, rather casually shot in parts. The
sections at NASA are particularly lacklustre, and one wonders how far
cinematographer Mahesh Aney is to blame for this. The grace of Mohan's
journey back home is obtained in the way the character responds to the
socio-political stimuli provided by the great Indian nightmare - as
opposed to the great American dream.
There's a long passage where Mohan journeys to a wretched village to
meet an impoverished family. The whole sequence where the head of the
family narrates his woes to Mohan even while being hospitable to him
is so idealistic, your heart reaches out not only to the characters
but also to Gowariker for making a film so stripped of cynicism.
The romantic liaison between Mohan and the spirited feminist Geeta
is given a shaded treatment, never overpowering the larger more dominant
themes in the script. Debutante Gayatri Joshi, though a tad too glamorous
to be the new age Jaya Bhaduri is one of the many refreshingly underexposed
actors in the film who add to its alluring authenticity.
But it's Shah Rukh who dominates the proceedings. Standing at the centre
of what's unarguably the most 'un-cynical' film of our times he strips
away the glamorous veneer of his recent characters to play a guy who's
completely credible.
Never before has he conveyed so much pain through his eyes. To say
he feels for his character is an understatement. To say that the film
allows him to finally come into his own as an actor is more like it.