Dec 05, 2008 07:38 PM
7599 Views
(Updated Dec 17, 2008 12:41 PM)
Aur yeh kahani bani...
It was again a very good experience to watch another Pakistani movie in a short period. The quality of film-making impressed me a lot which let me remember some of the brilliant Indian directors like Shyam Benegal, Hrishikesh Mukharjee and many more. Ramchand Pakistani is really a nice moving story, sensitively picturized. The movie brings to life the world of the poor Kolis (dalits) with such affection and accuracy. The movie has been beautifully shot, extremely engaging for the viewers, very well acted by the whole cast.
Ramchand Pakistani is the second movie from Pakistan released this year in India and getting good reviews from the viewers. Although I never take advice from somebody to watch movies coz every person has his/her own choice and experience about the movies and they have their advices, bad or good which confuse me a lot in choosing good movies to watch. But this time I have relied on the advice of store manager at BigFlix as I wasn't getting any other good movie to watch, I have decided to try his advice and bring this movie yesterday evening. Yesterday was thursday and I should go to sleep early but I have started the movie around 12:30 AM assuming that I would feel asleep within half an hour and set the off timer also. But the touching story of the movie didn't permit me to go to sleep at all and I have watched the complete movie till 2:00 AM. And once again I got stuck before the idiot box for all the running time (103 mins) of the movie.
I was in dillema that the movie has some another burning issue and there will be some bad language or bad feelings about India picturized in India but the movie do not have any bad thing about India. There were many incidents, places and cities (Bhuj Jail, Delhi, Wagha Border, Ahmedabad riots, Kargil war, Parliament attack) used in the movie as it is a real story. The junior artists used have also played their best performance in the movie, many of them played the characters of indians like jailor, policemen, prisoners, army persons. And they all looked very natural in the movie.
The cast of the movie has an attraction for indian viewers as Nandita Das who played the character of Champa, mother of Ramchand, a Pakistani Hindu woman who is left desolate when her young son and husband disappear one day from their village at the Indo-Pak border. Nandita Das is the only non-Pakistani actor in the large cast comprising well-known Pakistani TV and stage personalities. The two child actors played the lead character of Ramchand - Usman Abbasi as Younger Ramchand and Navaid Jabbar as Older Ramchand. Both of them looked so natural that they didn't want to act any time, they were so innocent and natural during the movie that viewres all the time wait for their appearance on the screen. Rashid Farooqui has played character of Ramchand's father - Shankar, played his character excellently as the poor and innocent farmer. He looked confused, caring, depressed many times during the story due to his son but he was a nice person overall.
The movie Ramchand Pakistani is based on the real incident happened with the accidental crossing of the Indo-Pak border of extreme, war-like tension between the two countries by two members of a Pakistani Hindu dalit family, and the extraordinary consequences of this unintended action upon the whole family. The movie has a simple theme that how a small kid from Pakistan aged eight years learns to cope with the trauma of forced separation from his mother while being held prisoner, along with his father in the jail of India, which is hostile to his own, while on the other side of the border, his mother, devastated by their sudden disappearance builds a new chapter of her life, by her solitary struggle for sheer survival.
The father and the son has been caught by the Indian force on the border and after interrogation brought to Bhuj jail where all the people were jailed who crossed the border, mostly unintentionally. There they find many good and bad people around them and started living in imprisonment hoping for their release some time. The jailor also appoint one lady policemen to educate Ramchand in jail. Once they were about the release very soon after their imprisonment but that's because of the system fault they again put behind the bars for another 4 years. Both the father and the son become very friendly with most of the people in jail. And in the end of the movie there was an exchange of prisoners between India and Pakistan and the son has been released and sent back to his homeland and also his father has been released and they again started their life.
The movie has won many prizes in many film festivals around the world which is very well deserved.
Mehreen Jabbar is another young and outstanding director of Pakistan completed her first directorial venture into big-screen, called Ramchand Pakistani and she succeeds in touching the hearts of real movie buffs.
The film was released in Pakistan and India in September 2008. Screenplay by Mohammad Ahmed and written and produced by Javed Jabbar. The music is directed by Debajyoti Mishra and it was very well selected and it complemented all the other aspects of the movie. The lyrics by Anwar Maqsood and the songs are sung by Shuba Mudgal and Shafqat Amanat Ali. The cinematography by Sofian Khan was beautiful and captured the vastness and the spare beauty of the Thar desert, including the wonderful architecture of the abandoned temples.
Special attractions -
Performance of both the child actors. Young Ramchand was so cute and stubborn. Once he was not happy with the tea offered to him and crossed the border due to anger.
Most of the characters are good at heart, even in jail father and the son met with nice people. Older Ramchand has become so frank and naughty with the policemen that they care about him and also argued with the jailor about his father's release with him.
The scenes between Ramchand and the lady policemen were very nice. He become so loveable to the lady policemen that she kissed at last with love at the time of her departure from the jail whom she didn't want to touch because of his lower caste.One hawker in Pakistan always looked ready to help the sad and alone mother without any expectation from her in return.
I sincerely recommend this movie to watch...
Thanks for reading this review. Comments most Welcome!!!
Regards,
Akash
