Parzania: Why they were speaking in English
iview Author: Himanshu (Columbus, Ohio, USA)
Email: cinemanshu [at]gmail.com
Content: Parzania: Why, oh why were they speaking English ?
I watched Parzania the other day and I ran through a whole gamut of emotions during the 2 hours of the movie – anticipation, surprise, fear, horror, revulsion, remorse, regret and hopelessness to name a few. I loved the movie and the courage of the filmmaker. I like that the film dared to take a stand and does not hold back any punches on who is to blame for the carnage in Ahmedabad. However, the film consistently left me feeling disconnected with what is happening on-screen (except some sequences I mention further down). It took me about 10 mins into the movie to put my finger on the reason. The spoken language does not gel with any of the characters shown in the movie. It just does not flow with the tone, the situation, the reality of what the director wants to portray. And this in my opinion is the biggest disservice done to the movie and its potential audience by the director.
Consider these examples:
1. The conversations between Shernaz and Nikhat ( the wonderful Seema Chaddha) in the chawl when they are gossiping about Sheelaben, sounds so artificial that even excellent acting by both the actresses did not succeed in making the scene deliver.
2. Two hindu fundamentalists (pretending to be census takers), wearing khadi, saffron scarves, tilak on the forehead and chewing paan curse by saying “fucking asshole” in our typical desi accent. That sounded so abrupt and ridiculous; I could not help but burst out laughing.
3. The old man Khan Baba says to his son “what a nice lady” when Shernaz (Sarika) says she is going to gift him a bedsheet. It seemed so contrived, I could not help thinking that the old man was perverted (okay, that was a joke). But how many people in a typical chawl converse in English with each other?
The movie is rife with such scenes where my attention was distracted from the content and I was thinking how ridiculous the English dialogues sound coming out of paanwalas, hawaldars, kaamvalis, newspaperwala and rickshaw drivers’ mouths.
So, what was the purpose of making them speak English? The content of the film deals with the horrors of the Godhra incident and the riots that followed and a family’s anguish in dealing with the loss of their son who is never found post the riots. This film is unique in that it actually calls out the perpetrators of the act and blames them. In the end, it could have actually forced people to rethink, reevaluate their beliefs and introspect on the actions that were allowed to occur and condoned by the very people who are duty bound to protect the victims. It could have been a wake up call for the souls of the masses of India who allowed Gandhi’s homeland to bear such violence.
Alas, though the film that could have been so much, never becomes! I am actually convinced that the film was not even designed to be watched by the average person in our country. The film seems geared, almost exclusively towards a foreign audience and/or the film festival circuits. If it is supposed to evoke any introspection in the Indian audiences’ minds then it fails miserably because it does not communicate in their language. And that to me is a great shame and lack of judgment by the director in not understanding how much bigger this movie could have been.
Make no mistakes; the film is superlative in terms of acting and has some truly great moments. The one sequence of the film which had me completely immersed in it is the riots. I have not seen the riots portrayed so realistically and vividly…ever. There is no background music to soften the effect or to comfort us that we are only watching a movie. One particular scene that gave me gooseflesh was when the mob uses a battering ram to break open the gates to the chawl. Nothing has shown men turn into animals out for blood more convincingly. For the filming of that sequence alone the director gets my two thumbs up!! There are some true magic moments like Nikhat being saved by a Hindu rioter that are sheer screenplay brilliance. A later scene where Cyrus (Naseersaab) scours through the corpses to search for his son and sees a body face down wearing a shirt similar to his son. The fact that he has to sit down lacking the courage to turn over the boy’s body to see if it is truly his son is heart wrenching, I was completely in that scene, the camera angle, the background score, and of course Naseersaab’s acting took me there and I had to wipe off tears from my eyes. But both of these sequences had no dialogues. I wish the entire movie could have been this way.
Of course the acting by almost all the lead actors is great…but then you can hardly go wrong in that department with such strong actors. There’s Naseersaab portraying the Parsee cinema projectionist Cyrus Pithiwala. Sarika as his wife Shernaz is outstanding and Raj Zutshi slips into his character with effortless ease. The one person who did not impress me is Corin Nemec as the American researcher Allen. He sticks out like a sore thumb and looks completely at loss. Was he sick while filming? And why does the Gandhian guy need to be a caricature of Gandhi himself? He even wears similar glasses for god’s sake.
But the overarching nagging gripe I have with the movie is that the director chose English as the language for expression of such powerful and poignant content. Another example of how it really jars you is when the kids in the movie are mouthing their lines. They come across so fake …. and come on Mr. Dholakia, what is with the kids skipping all the time during the initial part of the movie. All of the dialogues are as if coated in sugar syrup and then sandwiched between two layers of chocolate icecream and then there’s a cherry at the top. I mean, it is laid on really thick there. Just to make us like them, you need not have shown them dripping in saccharine sweetness. A little realism would have helped the cause here as well.
My conclusion at the end was that it is a very relevant film for Indian audiences. In a lot of ways it is a necessary film for our times and the current political situation of our country. The film should have been broadcasted on national TV for everyone to see and think about our actions. But I feel the message would have been lost in translation.
Tags: Cyrus Pithiwala, Gandhi, naseeruddin shah, Parzania, Rahul Dholakiya, Raj Zutshi, Sarika
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
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Nice Post. The scenes u mentioned,were really the ones that stood out in the film. A film on the same theme “Final Solution”, was entirely a documentary; but where it scored was it showed all the real people speaking in their own language.
Going of a bit tangent – But i had the same problem with Slumdog. Its a over rated movie anyways, but showing all the street children and a PANDU speak in English is bit to far fetched for me.
Firaq by Nandita das is better from the realism POV but the direction is more theatrical than cinematic..
Thanks PFC for publishing my first post!
@SKS
I was actually going to mention “Final Solution” in this post. What a documentary..I am still reeling from its shocks and I must have seen it months ago! You have to admire the courage of Rakesh Sharma. That documentary, the cold heartedness of the Bajrang Dal/VHP people who are interviewed, the misguided convictions of the villagers…it is an eye opener. If I find the link to the video, I will post it here. I think every Indian needs to see it to understand the true nature of our country.
To your other point, I agree there are some movies which can carry off English dialogues with elan. I loved Bombay Boys! The English dialogues actually helped to make the movie connect. But then it was not meant to be seen by the masses. Any of Merchant-Ivory films are great in this respect too. See “The Perfect Murder”… I don’t think the movie in Hindi would have been as funny at all. I have not seen Slumdog yet. Maybe when I do, I will write about it as well
the only reason i see is to reach a wider audience. rahul dholakia might have wanted to showcase this movie to the western world more than the indians. anyways, it would not get released successfully all-over-india b’cos of miscreants who would resort to tearing down posters and breaking into cinema halls to drive the people out :(
anyways, i m glad tat the movie actually got filmed completely and we could watch it; unlike many others which ran into problems either in the making or the release
I had the same problem with Aparna Sen’s much-hyped Mr. and Mrs. Iyer. People speaking English with UP-Bihar-Bangla-etc. accent is so fake and disturbing for the movie experience.
Haven’t seen Parzania and not sure I will, esp. for the problem u just mentioned.
@Varun
Please don’t think I am bashing this film. I truly believe this is an above average film…but it could have easily become a great film. My only contention is that it just does not realize it’s full potential because it distracts the viewers attention due to it’s choice of language. I do believe this movie needs to be seen though.
I agree, Mr & Mrs Iyer faced the same problem. But I did not enjoy the movie because of Rahul Bose. A completely overrated actor in my opinion.
@Himanshu
I remember a couple of years back, when Black Friday was released, Anurag Kashyap had a candid Q&A session with PFC folks (the audio was uploaded here) and he brought up Parzania. He was also of the opinion that it should’ve been made in Hindi.
@SKS
I felt the same problem with Slumdog. Luckily for Indian viewers, there’s also a Hindi version being released this Friday.
And yes, Final Solution is brilliant!! The best Indian documentary I’ve come across (not that I have seen many).
@Varun
I’d still recommend Parzania, despite the language issue.
If I am remembering something I read by Raja Sen correctly, Parzania was made in English because Rahul Dholakia never expected his movie to make it to Indian theaters. Rahul has posted on PFC previously, so perhaps he can answer himself. I’ve seen all three movies, and they are commendable in very different ways.
@Evelyn
See now that’s a shame. If I were the director that’s a huge compromise that I am not sure I would make. It’s like “marne key darr se jeena chhod diya”. But then I am not a director (yet)
Btw, which three movies are u referencing? Parzania, final solution and firaq? I haven’t seen firaq, but both P and FS deal with the same subject and are trying to give similar messages. Where FS succeeds brilliantly, P falls short of reaching the finish line (despite its brave attempt).
What I especially loved about Parzania was that it focused on individual acts of courage on the “opposing side,” so that the lines of who can be labeled good and evil were blurred.
Final Solution and Firaaq also explored the territory of personal choices, but in different ways from Parzania.
‘final solution’ was a documentary; so it was imperative that they use native language b’cos translations can spoil the effect. but when u r making a movie, u have the liberty of language. even ’slumdog millionaire’ had dialogues in english so as to reach a wider audience.
@ crazyrals
Reaching to wider audience but @ what cost? Sludog didnt work to me becuse it claims to show a real picture of India, but fakes it big time. Most of the village and illiterate youth would love to speak in English becuase they feel that it would brighten their chances of earning a decent livelihood.
@ HDoshi..
But Bombay Boys worked becuse it was set in Metro -Mumbai environment. Wont work if it was “Bihar Boys”
@ Himanshu
Point taken. I will try to catch it in spite of English language.
@Varun
Regarding Bombay Boys.. That is exactly my point. Language for the movie should be based on what you are trying to portray…not where your film will be released. Many good foreign films have subtitles to “reach a wider audience”. Case in point-Pan’s labyrinth is in Spanish…the movie got viewed/won in multiple film festivals & also the oscars with original dialogues & English subtitles. I don’t know Spanish, but then too I felt that if this movie would have been made in English it would not have transported the viewer to that time and era of Spain.
I think the story demands that a certain medium & language of expression be used to make the point…not neccessarily the “wider audience”.
Oops.. The last comment was for SKS & Crazyrals.. Sorry Varun
@SKS & Himanshu: i too hate SDM and have written comments against it in another post. i am not justifying the use of english language, but only reasoning out why they did so.
tats exactly the reason, bulk of the masses cannot understand spanish and they can’t read those english subtitles at that pace :(
@Himanshu:so, how many ppl in india have seen Pan’s labyrinth??? hardly any
if subtitle was the solution then hollyowwod movies would not be voice-dubbing it in hindi and Titanic could not have raked in the moolahs.
while i do agree tat somethings r lost in translation, but again…a movie like parzania reaching a wider audeince is more important than being of cinematic finesse
Here’s a 2007 story about the troubles Rahul Dholakia faced getting Parzania shown in India, until he formed his own distribution company. http://www.zeenews.com/Newspapers/2007-02-09/353004news.html