Veer-Zaara (2004)

I love the way this movie starts: Veer (Shahrukh Khan) wandering around the beautiful countryside singing a beautiful song, and every now and then we get a glimpse of the beautiful heroine, Zaara (Preity Zinta), although at that point her face is always obscured. At the end of the song the two catch sight of each other, and as they run towards each other, there is a gunshot, Zaara drops in a heap on the road, and Veer starts awake in his prison cell.

We are soon introduced to our other main character, Saamiya Siddiqui (Rani Mukerji), a lawyer assigned to argue her first case -- Veer's case. Saamiya is the first woman lawyer in Pakistan, and her drive to succeed is powered both by her love of justice and by her father's dream of making their country a country where women can succeed in professional careers. How well she does on this case will help to determine the future of women in Pakistani law.

Veer has been in this Pakistani prison for 22 years, and has not spoken to anyone, but he responds to Saamiya's compassion and pleading and begins to tell her his story. His story is the story of how he, an Indian Air Force search and rescue pilot, met and fell in love with Zaara, an engaged Pakistani girl from a wealthy family, and how that love led him to this Pakistani prison.

This was one of the first Indian movies I watched, and as they all did in those days, it completely swept me off my feet. The unabashed emotionalism, the music, the lavish sets, the love and drama and idealism, I thought it was great. I cried like a baby and immediately called my parents and told them they needed to rent it somehow and see it, too.

Watching it again recently, I am a little less easily swept off into the fairy tale than I used to be, a little more used to the style of story-telling and everything else, but I still really like it. One of my brothers also likes Bollywood movies, and he told me once that he didn't like this one because he thought it was stupid for Veer to spend 22 years in prison the way he did, (Allen, you're so unromantic). And maybe it is stupid in a way, but I still thought it was beautiful. Even watching it again six years later.

Actually, I didn't think I was going to cry this time, but I did. The night I rewatched this had been my last day of my clinicals training to be a CNA, and the cute little encouraging thumbs up that Veer gives Saamiya as she nervously stands up to begin arguing her case reminded me so much of the little old guys that would give me the same kind encouragement for my first tries at giving them baths or shaving them.

The first time I watched this movie I was too busy falling head over heels for Veer and Bollywood in general to pay too close attention to the other characters, but my parents, who saw it shortly afterwards, did not much like Zaara's character. They thought she was too self-absorbed, and they also didn't like Veer's parents very well. Coming back to the movie after gaining a better knowledge of the culture and of the tension between India and Pakistan, I appreciate them a lot better. I think Zaara's "I am who I am" song doesn't establish that she isn't willing to do things for other people, (as she proves, actually), but instead that she doesn't believe in forcing herself into a certain mold in her relationships and doesn't want to turn into the shadow of herself that the "perfect wife" mold would make her. And I realize now how wonderful it is that when Veer's parents (Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini -- whom I also didn't realize when I first saw this movie are veteran, wonderful actors themselves) learn that the girl Veer just took to see them is Pakistani, their first, knee-jerk reaction is to be delighted rather than skeptical or upset.

All in all, Veer-Zaara comes across a lot like a modern-day fairy tale, with the evil fiance, the unprincipled prosecution lawyer, the kind parents back in the village, the serving maid who secretly helps the lovers, and the kingly parents of the lady-love.

I still like fairy tales.

Pinjar (2003)

I've watched this movie now at least four times, but I still can't decide whether I like it or not. In order to discuss it here, though, I'll have to give more plot details than I like to have before I watch a movie, but I'll try to keep it from being too spoiler-ific.

Puro is the one on the top left.

Puro (Urmila Matondkar) is a carefree, wealthy Hindu girl in 1947 India with a loving family and special relationship with her brother, Trilok (Priyanshu Chatterji). The family lives in Amritsar but returns (without Trilok, who is finishing exams) to their ancestral place, Chattoani, to find a groom for Puro. They choose Ramchand (Sanjay Suri), a mild scholar from a kind and wealthy family.

This is Puro's friend giving Ramchand a hard time. As per tradition, Puro doesn't get a good look at him yet.

But one day out in the fields, Puro runs into a Muslim man, and he seems bowled over in more ways than one. In the days following, she notices him following her everywhere, staring intently at her.

It begins to give her nightmares, and when her mom asks her to go out and get some vegetables from the fields one day with her sister Rajjo, she is frightened to go. She goes out anyway, which ends up meaning that Rajjo gets to watch as the man rides up on a horse, grabs Puro, and rides off. Rajjo runs home and tells her family, who are devastated.

The man, as it turns out, is Rashid (Manoj Bajpai), whose family has an old grudge against Puro's. Many years before, when Puro's clan was stronger and Rashid's weaker, Puro's uncle had taken Rashid's aunt, kept her for several days, and then abandoned her. Her family then could do nothing about it, but they had sworn to take revenge in the next generation, and Rashid's family had determined to abduct Puro, whether he would do it or someone else.

On top of that, as he tells her, he had fallen in love with her. So he carried her off, knowing full well that this would cut her off from her former life, her relatives, her friends, her religion, her social standing, her wealth, her freedom, her "honor," and everything she held dear.

This makes no sense to me, and if it weren't for similar stories (like Dinah and Shechem in the Bible) I would think it totally unbelievable. It's like a boy admiring a beautiful bird flying in the sky and deciding (because he loves it?) to shoot it down. Then, in this case, he tries to nurse the bird back into health and turn it into a pet. How is this love?

(This bird analogy is really supplied by the script, not me. Trilok calls Puro "Kooggi," which I think means "Love Bird," from the subtitles of one of the songs. "Pinjar" also means cage, or skeleton. There is quite a bit of bird imagery for Puro in the beginning.)

There is some ambiguity, perhaps just because of the subtitles, but I think Rashid does not actually rape her at that point. He just keeps her in his house for several weeks, so that no one will accept her again as she was. Eventually he tells her they are getting married, "honorably," and although Puro is frantic and horrified at the thought, she finally realizes that she has essentially no other choice. (It is clear, though, that whether or not he raped her at that point, she considered the whole situation, the whole marriage to be rape. When she conceives later, she calls the baby "the burden of his sin.")

But Rashid really does seem to love her, and his gentleness and penitence, his great guilt, make me want to forgive him at once.

Which is the crux of my problem with this movie. Rashid, who was horribly creepy at the beginning and who forcibly took from Puro all she loved, by all rights ought to be considered unforgivable, and I think Puro thought this as well for a long time.

Yet as a Christian, I have to believe in forgiveness, even for this. I think forgiveness is the message of the movie, and it is a good message for everyone.

But in India, where women are too often treated with disrespect, it makes me dreadfully uncomfortable to have the message be: "it's alright." Because it isn't. It isn't right at all.

I think it's curious the way the families of the men involved in rape and the families of the women handle the matter. When Puro manages to escape and return to her grieving mother and father (before her marriage), they turn her out again (sorrowfully, but mercilessly).

Rashid's family, on the other hand, celebrates her entry to the family and congratulate themselves on her sweetness. Later on, the mother of a different man who had kidnapped a woman can't seem to understand why the stupid girl looks upset all the time and won't smile at her son. Imagine that. (Yikes!) I just don't understand the disconnect. How can you realize that rape is totally depraved when the victim is your daughter, aunt, or sister and not see it when the criminal is your son or brother? How can you be so heartless to the innocent victim and so forgiving to the perpetrator?

Puro's dad (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) writes her off as soon as he realizes he can't get her back the same day he lost her. (I do understand his reasoning, and I also appreciate the cultural differences between 1940s India and 2000s America, but that doesn't mean I think it's right.)

Puro's brother, Trilok, on the other hand, never stops looking for her once he finds she is missing.

I do appreciate that, but his reaction has some flaws, too -- like the way he completely ignores his bride in his obsession to find his sister, and the act of vengeance he commits later in the movie. Ramchand's response is much better than I expected, both at first and later on.

Puro had every part of her identity taken away, even her name. But when Partition happened, Puro found reasons for living. Puro's position in the Muslim world enables her to help her family after Partition rips everything apart, (rather like Joseph in Egypt in the Bible). She finds things she can do that give her life purpose, and she begins to recover and to lose some of her bitterness. And in the very end, she realizes that she has a choice about the way her life will go. (It's nice that the plot (and some of the men in it) make this obvious for her.) There is no happy way to end this story, but I think it works out as well as it can.

And Rashid, I do forgive Rashid. He treats her as well as he knows how, I think. And when Partition happens, he rises to the occasion and unselfishly helps her help those she loves, even at great risk. Even when it might mean he could lose his life, or lose her. Even before the final scene, he has let her go in a way -- opened the door of the cage, so to speak. And so I forgive him. (This part reminds me very much, actually, of the story of the Marriage of Sir Gawain, which is a story I like.)

Even having forgiven Rashid, though, I still find the ending problematic. I don't normally like problematic movies, and as I said, I'm not entirely sure whether I like this one or not, but I do think it is worth watching. It's a good look at a fascinating part of history, and it is very thought-provoking. If you haven't seen it yet, you should.