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Anwar review
'Anwar' highlights love during
communal strife (REVIEW)
By Subhash K. Jha,
Film: "Anwar"; Actors: Manisha Koirala, Siddharth Koirala,
Nauheed Cyrusi, Hiten Tejwani; Director: Manish Jha; Rating: **
1/2
Lucknow - volatile, culturally rich, temperamental, poetic,
dichotomous, ironical ... somehow writer-director Manish Jha
captures all of this with brutal force in this deeply flawed yet
moving tale of love and politics.
"Anwar" picks up a welter of headlines on communal strife and
stores them in one turbulent but telescopic overview of
existence at the fringes.
The focus of Jha's narrative is an old abandoned temple where a
derelict-lover Anwar (Siddharth Koirala) takes refugee.
This innocent act of sheltering wounded love triggers off a
bizarre chain of events. TV cameras simmer across the horizon, a
film crew with an item girl materialises on the spot and a
spaced out journalist (Rajpal Yadav) searches for George Bush's
mobile number.
Wily politicians who are spurned by women and constituencies
walk across Jha's crowded canvas creating a tempo and
temperature that is at once intriguing and provocative.
Jha, who earlier made "Matrubhoomi" - an unbearably gruesome
film on female foeticide and mass rape - turns vaguely lyrical
here.
"Anwar" is partially a political parable and partly a love
story. I'd rather see the politics that envelopes the entire
murky skyline as an offshoot of the love story about the
sensitive Anwar whose love for the girl next door Mehroo (Nauheed
Cyrusi) is thwarted by the happening Hindu boy (Hiten Tejwani).
The triangle builds up into a frightening deadlock culminating
in three deaths one after another.
"Anwar" is a dark and wounded work. Its creditable plot line is
largely unsupported by any marked pockets of tenderness or
sensitivity from the fringes. Every character has a story to
yell - and I do mean yell.
Manisha Koirala playing a Barkha Dutta-styled TV journalist
speaks to her weeping repentant lover (Sushant Singh). A
troubled cop (Yashpal Sharma) has a terminally ill wife and
whiny daughter to deal with while trying to flush out the poor
'terrorist' from his holy hideout. And a slimy Hindu chauvinist
(Sudhir Pandey) comes down on Valentine's Day revellers because
he has just been snubbed in his extra-marital affair.
Shiv Senaites, eat your hearts out.
All these headlines hardly hold together the brittle plot. The
sharp edges stick out creating more ideological chaos than any
definite denouement to the tangled story. Adding to the
prevalent muddle is a beggar-charlatan-actor (Vijay Raaz) who
thinks love is the most precious gift in the world. Raaz is both
parodic and passionate.
What holds together is the central theme of love during times of
communal conflict created not by rioters but within the domestic
lifescape. Young Siddharth's character gently nudges Aamir
Khan's in Deepa Mehta's "1947: Earth".
Jha uses granite locations (supposedly Lucknow) and mythological
allusions with equal sincerity. He avoids overt sentimentality
but ends up creating unconscious folds of tender feelings within
the dilating communal canvas.
In the week of the epic "Guru", let's applaud this small but
significant film about scarred souls trying to come to terms
with a socio-political scenario that leaves no room for human
values.
This page is related to :
Anwar review, review anwar, anwar
hindi film, anwar hindi movie, bollywood film anwar, Actors:
Manisha Koirala, Siddharth Koirala, Nauheed Cyrusi, Hiten
Tejwani; Director: Manish Jha;
IANS.
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