A film of its time

The characters in Parzania are relatively under-played in comparison to Russell Crowe’s portrayal of John Nash, where the emotional is rather heavily overlaid on the real. If we assume a 1 to 10 scale of dramatisation where the minimum will be represented by 1 and the maximum by 10; then Parzania will stay close to 3 or 4 while films like Gandhi and A Beautiful Mind will hover around 7, 8, or even 9 where histrionics take over so completely that ultimately the film, ignoring the real, turns into an emotional love story of a certain kind.

In sharp contrast to classical periods in history, today the genuine artist is passionately, even painfully seeking a new relationship between art and life. The work that shows that struggle, even while depicting other major themes is totally honest. To my mind, Parzania, despite its pitfalls, fares well in this regard. Obviously it is an activist film. It seeks to highlight the barbaric killings of Muslims in Gujarat on a massive scale with state support. The shocking irrationality and insensitivity of the situation has moved the filmmakers and they have turned a documentary subject into a feature film. Their motives are transparent and clear.

The documentary film movement in our country is too weak, almost non-existent, to have access to large sections of viewers. The feature film has effectively replaced all other medium of entertainment, except TV soaps. The fact that the makers of Parzania thought it fit to take recourse to a dramatisation of real-life events through a few star actors, does not surprise me. I have no problem with it.

The writer is an actor, director and playwright. He is former director of the National School of Drama

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