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Sarhad Paar Review
Sarhad Paar review
'Sarhad Paar' - tedious fare
(REVIEW)
By Subhash K. Jha,
Film: "Sarhad Paar"; Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Tabu, Mahima Chaudhary,
Chandrachur Singh, Akash Khurana; Director: Raman Kumar
You gaze at Tabu - that wonderful actress, who has constantly
been short-changed by filmmakers barring a few who have tried to
capture her essence, and succeeded in just touching the lapel of
her talent.
In director Raman Kumar's unfinished look at the wounds caused
by wars and ravages across the borders, Tabu plays the wife of a
prisoner of war who has lost his memory during interrogation and
torture.
The healing process could have been tender and evocative. Alas,
it becomes a source of tremendous torture for us. "Sarhad Paar"
is as tedious and unclear about its motives as a rudderless
steamboat that's run out of steam.
The material is obviously unfinished and the second half
desperately aims at creating a kitschy excitement.
Guns boom in gurdwaras, women wail in clumsily recorded banshee
voices - tells you what not to put on a vacant soundtrack.
Poor Tabu. She struggles to remain coherent and graceful in a
plot that loses its way in a lamentable labyrinth of painful
compromises.
Sanjay Dutt wears a bewildered expression, half-hidden by a
turban and totally eclipsed by the cinematographer (Manmohan
Singh), who's asked to simulate sunshine out of a mournfully
mixed-up and gloomy mish-mash of politics and trash.
On the plus side, the film has been shot on location in a dusty
village of Punjab. We can almost smell the 'mitti' (soil) in the
gallis (lanes).
But the emotions remain largely unattainable in the melee of
mix-n-match emotions - all tied together by a will to somehow
get the doomed plot to its finishing line.
If you're a big Tabu fan as I am, then walk out in the
first-half. That's when the script decides not to give her and
us a fair deal.
IANS.
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