9/11: And How It Changed the Hindi Film “Aatankwaadi”
It’s quite interesting that in the week leading to the seventh anniversary of 9/11, we had three Hindi films releasing on the theme of terrorism, namely, ‘A Wednesday’, ‘Tahaan’ and ‘Hijack’.
As Naseer’s “Common Man” ranted passionately on his helplessness, his supposed impotence and his desire to ‘answer’ at the end of ‘A Wednesday’, I reflected on the progression of two graphs which it represented. Firstly, that of the “Common Man” – an image of whom is indelibly inked in our mind by the peerless R.K. Laxman. The “Common Man”, as an observer, with his bemused and often ironical view about the state of affairs had suddenly transformed to the “Common Man” as the playmaker who runs the game and holds a city to ransom. Secondly, ‘A Wednesday’ coming on the back of a surfeit of ‘terrorism linked movies’ in the year seemed to close the loop on what I consider the first generation of terrorism movies in India. A generation which started with Mani Ratnam’s ‘Roja’ in mid 90s and moved through different depictions up to ‘A Wednesday’ where the hunter gets hunted.
It is this second graph that interests me immensely. This first generation which, I claim, has ended and what it will lead to. Let’s understand this first generation in two parts – the pre 9/11 and the post 9/11 timeframes. 9/11 is an important frame of reference because it changed all our views on terrorism. No longer were faster speed of information and the rise of capital markets the only defining symbols of the 21st century, global terror had joined their ranks. The two planes tearing through a sunny September morning into the Twin Towers left a gaping hole in our comprehension of events around us. It’s not that India didn’t know what terrorism meant before 9/11. But that day redefined terrorism for it too.
There’s a scene in Gulzar’s Maachis where Om Puri asks “Aatankwaadi kya khet mein ugate hain”? That sums up the focus of the pre 9/11 era of terrorist movies – what makes a terrorist? It’s a theme dealt with in Maachis and before it in, albeit in a heavy-handed manner, in Nihalani’s Droh Kaal. In Droh Kaal, Nihalani presents an almost nameless, mission-less terrorist outfit which plans to overthrow the regime with no clear enunciation of what’s going to replace it. The long stretch of conversation between Om Puri and Ashish Vidhyarthi is on principles and deliberate desire on part of the Director to create moral ambiguity. In a way, Gulzar plays to the same ambiguity in Maachis though here there is a clearer cause and affect dynamic at play.
Maachis has a context – terrorism in Punjab – but it becomes a story of a few seeking personal vengeance. The key characters have been abused by the state (which was a reality in Punjab of mid 80s) and they take it upon themselves to teach it a lesson. Seen differently, it is similar to the 70s anti-system cinema, where the protagonist wreaks vengeance on the system in a highly personalized battle. The one nuanced character in the film is that of Om Puri who does talk about the community and its history of alienation from partition to the ’84 riots. Gulzar did deviate from the mainstream in that the rebellion of the main characters ends up in death and disaster reinforcing the standard message of violence is no answer to these issues.
Santosh Sivan’s ‘The Terrorist’ completes the triumvirate where there is again no mention of the cause or the name of terrorist organization and the whole purpose is personal vendetta against an unnamed VIP. All the three movies delved into the origins of a terrorist, the chain of events that sets one off against the state and subtly hinted at the larger social context within which these events occurred. They kept the focus on the individual and shied away from deconstructing the milieu which engendered such reactionary strains.
The other three notable mainstream movies with terrorism as their themes were essentially good old-fashioned melodramas. Mani Ratnam’s Roja was a rehash of Satyavan and Savitri fable with Kashmir as its background. Dil Se was a cinematic triumph but the terrorist element in the plot constantly bowed to the demands of commercial cinema. Dil Se eventually became a love story which portrayed the different hues of love including self-destruction. Terrorism, the climax notwithstanding, became an afterthought. Lastly, Vinod Chopra’s ‘Mission Kashmir’ was a Shakti reprise with terrorism coming between the foster father and son. You could call them limited additions to our appreciation of terrorism as a social phenomenon but what these movies helped in achieving was lending legitimacy to mainstream ‘Bollywood’ stories with a terrorism sub-plot. While that opened new avenues for sensible filmmakers, the Harry Bawejas of the world also ran their imagination wild with the likes of Diljale to cash in on terrorism.
The pre 9/11 terrorist films remained focused on individual stories, showed aversion towards specifying the ideology and maintained some strong formulaic elements in their narration. As we shall see, 9/11 changed all that.
The first significant difference in the post 9/11 depiction of terrorism is how directly the filmmakers address the ideological specifics even when the movie dealt with events of pre 9/11 timeframe. The Muslim disaffection and its subsequent aftermaths which define the post 9/11 world have made it easier for filmmakers to tackle the subject directly. In Black Friday, for instance, there is no pussyfooting around the religious origins of terror on either side of the communal divide. You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief as Rakesh Maria interrogates clinically, throwing political correctness that has always marked these scenes to the winds. This specificity is shown without apology in later films like ‘Aamir’ or even ‘Black and White’ where the terrorists and their ideology aren’t ambiguous.
The second change is more interesting. The stories rarely revolve around the origins of a terrorist any more. The new stories are about the inexplicability of the ordinary protagonists of the world around them. This is marked in literature as well (example The Reluctant Fundamentalist and The Inheritance of Loss) where the turn of events and the ‘boundarylessness’ of their impact are incoherent to their protagonists. So an ‘Aamir’ has no idea what’s happening to him and why should he be the ‘chosen one’. ‘Anwar’ ponders over what choices he has to make as he is mistakenly taken to be a terrorist who has plans to bomb temples. The focus of ‘Mumbai Meri Jaan’ is not on those who planted the bombs but those who struggle to come to terms with the event around them.
Mainstream cinema continued the stereotypical terrorist films but these numbers have dwindled lately. I would not be surprised if we have seen the last of kohl-eyed, Pakistan praising terrorists in Hindi cinema. The standard melodrama disguised as a terrorist film approach has also possibly seen its last days with the very average ‘Fanaa’ as one of its last example.
Coming back to Mumbai Meri Jaan, the bewilderment of Madhavan, Irrfan or Soha is about their inability to act on what happened around them. It’s an arena that is complex and uncertain. What should their response be?
That’s why I was interested that ‘A Wednesday’ (a film whose flaws I can’t forgive easily) actually focused on that specific question – “What should their response be?” And gave us a version of that response.
In a sense it marks the closure of the first generation of terrorist movies. Like in literature of 20th century, especially in post WW1 and WW 2 era, the topics move away from events to their repercussion after a decade or so. The entire generation of post colonial literature (Camus, Naipaul, Greene, Mahfouz or Rushdie) were the products of that focus on the repercussion. It will be interesting to see the parallel in Hindi cinema.
Tags: Subrat, Terrorism
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
@Subrat,
We may fall for over simplification (as far as hindi cinema is concerned) if we see changes in India and hindi cinema post 9/11. 9/11 did not change views in India but it changed views of US of A towards terrorism. Not that it has changed its views completely but they were changed to a great extent. India already was facing curse of sponsored terrorism for many decades (atleast from 1980 onwards) but US of A and other super powers or say 3-4 powerful countries, having veto powers were not ready to pay attention to India’s POV. These countries and people of these countries were always more than eager to say their opinion on simple events happened in India that India does not treat well few of its minority sectors. And what they did once faced 9/11?
India did not face any change after 9/11.
USA saw a change in its policies.
England saw a change after terroristic attacks on its undergrounds.
Spain saw the changes.
They started paying attention to India’s continuous complains.
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India is not a powerful country so that its sayings and socio-political theories are heard by powerful countries of the world and same is the situation of the Indian cinema.
No other country exists in such a complex situation as Indian society exists.
When Hindi cinema shows kohl eyed terrrists then it can be seen from other POV also. If they start showing normal muslims as terrorists then it can be harmful for the society. a prototype terrorists is not that harmful for the whatever peace is maintained in the society. so in formula films, these kohl eyed terrorists work better.
If a film has got depth and its a thought provoking film then I dont think directors have been following any prototype trait for its terrorist characters.
When a villain is of abstract nature then all sections of society can watch it.
India is not a homgenous society like western world where majority belongs to one religion and they have the biggest say in those countries.
We cant separate things to make our own theories.
True Lies gets same proto type defintion of a arabic villain.
More later.
Interesting post.
Why just 9/11???….look at the serial blasts rocking our country every quarter…..who can forget mumbai’s very own 7/11….But, sad that many films made on this concept do not lead to the right climax!! It does not happen in reality tooo…..apart from the latest SIMI arrests( Just in opp. ruled states )…there have been cases where the parties talk to the terrorists and ask them politely not to kill ppl in thier respective states coz they are anti-opp agenda….wow!! so, the ppl under opp. regime can die??….politics being played here too…so yes the ‘Common Man’ is the scape goat again….
THEY ALL THOUGHT WE DINT KNEW THIS!! WE NEED A RIGHT CLIMAX!!!
Brilliant analytical post, Subrat.
This is exactly why Hijack failed to connect with the audience, it gave a feeling of deja vu. A Wednesday, in spite of its highlighted flaws and MMJ as well as Aamir will continue to attract viewers in their other viewing formats for a long, long time.
Maachis still does so. I’ve caught up with it on TV, Again and again.
Superb Subbu bhai….i like how you take one concept and go about pulling up facts and your opinions on it…
For me the biggest difference in how the movies are dealing post 9/11( very interesting way to divide the mindset, i have a slight different pov, will comeback) is the oversimplification as RK saab has said..and anything that has to do being terrorist is muslim…this was never there( or so, only if he/she happens from sarhad -paar)…
Another era of terrorist films, well they were communal disharmony movies, then…was pre-Indira Gandhi death era..and post Indira-Gandhi death era…were all the disharmony was from angry sikhs…
Pre-Rajiv Gandhi death era-Post RG death era..where all the dishramony was done by LTTE…
well, this boils down to..do we have a great terrorist movie? which has a solid insight and is not reacting to present situations?
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‘A Wednesday’ (a film whose flaws I can’t forgive easily)..
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Interesting. Perhaps not the right place and the right time for it yet, but I would genuinely like to know what were the ‘unforgivable flaws’ of the movie according to you. I, on the contrary, found it to be one with the fewest false notes (note, I said ‘fewest’ not ‘none’) in recent times. If you wish we can discuss it offline.
ghanghor fursati longon ke liye
.
it is a book by fritjof capra
.
full title – The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism
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wiki link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tao_of_Physics
here is the book
http://www.esnips.com/doc/8451c17c-ff75-49b4-afac-91f48c3fabfb/Capra__Fritjof_-_The_Tao_of_Physics
in the foreword of above mentioned book
you will read that church held the scientific discovery captive for two thousand years
once Galileo broke that barricade
flood of scientific discoveries engulfed west
.
psychology invented the primal therapy in 1970’s
psychoanalysis traces the root of trauma in childhood, they found that these traumas existed even in early childhood, this retracement reached up to the birth time
since than again the church and belief of one life is working as the barricade
once psychology break that barricade
with in ten years everybody in west will be talking about ‘pichala janam’
.
Buddha has devided human phycology in seven parts
modern psychology has reached up to four
it is yet to discover 3 more
BTW – one contemporary of Buddha, Makhli Gosal has made 700 divisions
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the daVinci code
this is the movie with the most far reaching consequences
i loved it
great post, subrat !!!
I have seen one movie called Private.
Director:Saverio Costanzo
Cast:Lior Miller, Tomer Russo, Mohammad Bakri.
It is a must watch for everyone who wants to know how a gripping movie on the theme of terrorism is to be made in the most realistic way possible.
It is really sad that even on PFC I come across comments which imply movies like Black & White / Aamir etc are great movies.
I failed to understand what is great about Aamir? Camerawork ? Real Locations ? Salim Langdey Pe Mat Ro had Real Locations and may be due to shoe string budget of NFDC could not have greatest of the camera work but then it was made 20 years back.
Black Friday / Mumbai Meri Jaan are really path breaking movies. Black Friday was more of a docu-drama format but Mumbai Meri Jaan was work of fiction with a real incident as backdrop.
Aamir was 100% fiction and far from reality. Only reality in the movie was the locations and people.
This post by Subrat is very nice and sometimes it is sad to see audiences having such an insightful views about movies while the makers don’t give due importance to even serious issues.
@Zaid..when we speak about insightful terrorist movies in commercial formats, we are a little hobbled. The idea is to deliver a message and yet entertain. As Subrat says, Dil Se did not run the entire course as it was restrained by commercial chains. Conversely, Aamir on the other side of the spectrum, is able to raise just those uncomfortable questions within an acceptable commercial format about the fundamentalist and his goals. It succeeds and Salim Langda would have succeeded too but for its abysmal marketing.
Today, the society does not face that much of a threat from outside as much as within. The fracture, post Godhra (Subrat, I shall take this as the dividing line and not 9/11) has made us unsure, watchful, irrational yet compassionate. Confusing? The same confusion is being seen up on the screen. The confusion I see in the Mumbai citizens everyday, wives calling husbands, mothers waiting for children back from school, Security at the gates of Residential complexes, no more evening walks in Shivaji Park for many a citizen….other cities are not yet so much afflicted but the rashes are showing..the bad ass son of a IPS officer indicted in the Punjab cleansing of the 80s (he has the temerity to say ‘Nepal se mangaaun AK 56…naya!’), the weeping widow of Karunakar, a Bank executive who died in the Hyderabad blast and she still has no clue whether his murderers are caught or not..or who were they?
This confusion reflects in MMJ, Black or White and Wednesday. Otherwise, why are people clapping in cinema halls across India for the common man “Naseer”??
if we analyse aatankwadi films in referece with 9/11…we will never understand it.terrorism in india has a different nature.it needs more understanding of our social fabric and political conflicts.forget usa,remember us.
subrat;
superb analysis. but i have to disagree in one fundamental respect with regard to mani ratnam. i see a direct continuity rather than a substantial break between ratnam and the post 9/11 films. take bombay for example — how is the arvind swamy character — private citizen in hindu-muslim relationship – different from aamir who has a hindu mashooqa? how is the closing of “a wednesday” different from roja where a private citizen demands restitution from the state and if refused, will take matters into her own hands? dil se is more complicated since the film does not preserve the distinction between citizen and terrorist – us and them — since the citizen falls in love with the terrorist. in all these other films — the citizen “common man” is distinct from the ideologues. he just wants to live an ordinary life, raise a family, have the freedom to do ordinary things, fall in love etc etc. in other words, all these films, pre or post 9/11, ask to preserve the sanctity of daily life — the one thing that terrorism most disrupts. as such they capture the essence of a globalizing india where people just want to live in peace and move towards prosperity. when those same global networks that can and has – for certain segments of the population – been generating wealth and comfort begins to be “hijacked” by terrorists, the citizen stands up to this. we notice in both instances, pre and post 9/11 movies the absolute weakness of the state in guaranteeing security. this suspicion of the state (it is corrupt, it is weak etc etc) i agree, with one of the respondents above is a post-Godhra response but then again, Hindi cinema has always been suspicious of the state.
anyway, this is a fantastic discussion.
Thanks. There are a few comments about terrorism predating 9/11 in India and asking me to check my premises. I appreciate that point, however, if you look at the seminal event which changed how terrorism is looked at and how it is tackled, it is 9/11.