Moview review: Raazi

I generally prefer watching Hindi movies as compared to English ones as Hindi movies don't require you to think. They are made in their own fancy world for pure entertainment and nothing else. And then once in a while comes a movie which is both and it affects you in such a way that you don't even realise it did. Raazi is one such movie - it is such a brilliant piece! It was enjoyable while watching it and stayed with me long after I had got out of the theatre.

Raazi is the story about an Indian Kashmiri girl who is married into a Pakistani army family in 1971 with the aim of spying on the new family for India. She transforms from a college-going girl to a brave spy, willing to go to any lengths to do something for her country. The film follows her journey, with tense moments where she does things no one, even her could have imagined her doing. On the whole the movie follows a typical storyline, but the end...

The acting by all the characters in the movie is perfect. As is the pace which keeps you riveted to your seats. It is so tense at many moments given the antics Sehmat does, the bravery and creativity she shows and the risks she takes. Sometimes her actions feel almost foolish and that ties in so well with the classic 'willing-to-die-for-country' statements she makes in the beginning.

The movie has so many subtle messages in it, they hit you without you knowing when. Sehmat’s initial dialogues on why she wanted to take all these risks for her country felt very typical and textbook-ish. But she believed in them with all her heart. And towards the end she realises that these patriotic dialogues don't help people with what they have to deal with in real life. Tis realisation happens so slowly as the story unfolds - that is a masterstroke of the movie.

The divergence of this movie from typical patriotic or spy movies is that it doesn't show any side, India or Pakistan as the worse side. In most Hindi movies involving Pakistan, as a caricature, characters from there are shown to be villains. And that is what I walked in expecting to see - her in-laws would be difficult, her husband would have had vices and so on - but there was none of it at all.

They were normal people, living a normal life, doing their job, loving their country and so on. And so many small aspects about her in-laws were shown positively. They were from a progressive family. They wore sarees and everyone was respectful of everyone else. And didn’t really put any restrictions on Sehmat as we would have expected them to do.  And no one reminded her or made her feel that she was from the enemy nation. Then how could she do this to them?

In fact, when Sehmat for the first time kills someone, I wasn't sure if to support her or not. Clearly, she was doing it for ‘my’ country, India> I should support her, no? But I couldn't. And as she goes deeper into it all, I didn’t know how I could support her killing innocent people... (and that's a first for a Hindi movie!)

The scene where her husband, Iqbal finds out that she was a spy and goes and cries in the bathroom - what was I supposed to do? Hate him because he was a Pakistani? The scene where they face off each other has to be one of the most moving scenes of the movie. Where I wasn’t sure who to root for...

It's so surprising but if the countries had been reversed, Alia and her supporters could very easily have been the villain in the story. A friend who betrays his own friend and friendship, a daughter-in-law who doesn't let her in-law's goodness affect her, a girl who kills an old man and then her husband’s brother, just for doing the right thing, and then breaks her husband’s heart. How can she be a hero, a good person, on the right side?

In a typical spy movie between two countries at war, you come out feeling happy and victorious if your country wins the war. But it wasn't what I came out thinking of this theatre. Because irrespective of who had the moral high ground in any war and was the ‘right’ party, people from both the countries in the end are ultimately ‘wronged’. It is only countries which win wars, its people always lose. And I think therein lies the brilliance of this movie, so sensitively handled by the director. I have become a fan. Would go for 5 stars for this one.

And I must say one thing again - only if Hindi film makers spend a little bit of time and effort into their movies’s stories, the whole industry will be so much better.