History just a convenient distraction?

Kalank (Hindi, Stigma; 2019)

I agreed to go and watch this movie as I was told it was a period drama, set at the most tumultuous time in the history of India, around the Partition. I was looking forward to seeing all the excitement and the political wrangling that surrounded the amputation of arms that held Mother India together. Sadly, what it turned out to be was a lovey-dovey soap opera instead. Typical of mini-serials that fill our airspace, the film delved in annoyingly artificial slow motion shots that accentuate nothings but highlights the ridiculousness of the plots, drags the performance to over two and a half hours and drives home the point that it is just a meaningless soap opera with massive sets and flashy costumes.

The cinematography is quite breathtaking but what is the point if it is not complemented with a believable plot and relevant crisis? The landscape is definitely whitewashed, CGI perhaps. True, Indian history boasts of fearless female sorceresses and erudite women poets, marriage, love and sex remain a taboo. Definitely, it would have been so in the mid-1940s, the time the film was set. Imagine a 20-something young woman fighting for her sexual freedom at the time when even the country had no independence from the tyranny of the British.

The story tells the sad tale of a boisterous young girl, Roop, trapped into marriage due to poverty. The husband, Dev, is a reluctant participant of this arrangement as his current wife, Satya, is still alive but has only a year to live due to an unspecified medical ailment. Roop was picked out by the ailing wife, Satya, as a sort of a mistress but Roop wanted assurance, hence the union.

The family that Roop goes into is tainted. Theirs is a wealthy Hindu family who runs the local daily in a town predominantly filled with poor Muslims. Partition talk is hotly debated. There are rumours of British industries eating into the town, Hasnabad's livelihood. The city, known for its blacksmiths from time immemorial, has to probably close shop, squashed by the mega industries. The townsfolks are up in arms for the papers do not highlight their predicament.

Roop meets her dream lover, Zafar, but the lover is using her as a vendetta against Dev and his family. Zafar is Dev's half-brother, the result of Dev's father affair with the local courtesan, Bahaar Begum. Zafar grew up abandoned as both his parent refuse admission to paternity. And the ember of animosity between the 'remainers' and 'exiteers' of Bharat Desh sizzles on. Interestingly, the theme of the movie is love and finding the right love. It has nothing to do with Partition. It is just a distraction. Nothing was mentioned in the film about inter-communal love or the build-up to the communal violence that climaxes towards the end of the movie. The computer graphics appear unconvincing. Thumbs down.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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