Raazi

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Rey P Nov 16, 2018 Raazi is an epic that tells a previously untold story of a Kashmiri college student who marries a Pakistani army officer to spy for India during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 during the midst of East Pakistan's fight for liberation. Alia Bhatt is the star of the film and we see her in this role transcending normative Bollywood heroine roles arriving at something entirely different; Sehmat represents a different type of heroine and even so, maybe a different type of Mother India. The film begins in the present-day on an Indian army ship addressing a group of soldiers detailing the sacrifices a particular woman made whilst undercover in Pakistan during the horrific war in 1971. The story flashes to the events right before the war when Sehmat's father, an Indian agent posing as a Pakistani informant, arranges her marriage to his Pakistani Brigadier "friend's" son, Iqbal Syed, another military officer. The story follows 20-year-old Sehmat's training and journey into infiltrating the enemy in the name of her country. Unlike Veer-Zaara, which I would argue is a love story set in the context of war and its aftermath, Raazi is a war story with brief subplots hinting to life during war-what love looks like, what domestic life looks like, what family looks like during horrific, trying times. Because Raazi is still, of course, a Bollywood movie, there's still extradiegetic song sequences, though are few and not accompanied with dancing or playback singing. Similar to Veer-Zaara and Main Hoon Na, though, Raazi humanizes Pakistan and Pakistanis in ways many other Bollywood war films don't. Like Saba Bhaumik says in "Politics of Indian War Films," many war films paint Pakistanis as inherently evil and villainous (86). These three films resist "the stereotypical discourse about the Muslim criminal and terrorist as a threat to the Indian nation that marks much Hindi cinema" and show the similarities between Indians and Pakistanis echoing the sentiment that Pakistanis love their family and country like Indians do so what makes them so characteristically different (Violent Belongings: Partition, Gender, and National Culture in Postcolonial India 158)? Even the name of the film, Raazi, is a statement because it's an Urdu word; the film could have easily been called Sehmat, but the director, Meghna Gulzar, made a deliberate choice to make the title the Urdu equivalent. This plus the fact that the main character, Sehmat, is Muslim, points to this Bollywood secularity that we all know and love, but also solidifies that the differences between an Indian and Pakistani are just the name. It also sends the message that there is indeed a place for Muslims in India and its national story no matter what current events reflect. All in all, I really loved this movie and what it stood for as a whole. Finally the stories of women during war are coming out, and even though South Asia as a whole has a lot more work to do concerning this, I see Raazi as a success. Sehmat represents one of millions of Pakistani, Indian, Bengali women who faced unspeakable acts of violence during these wars that were then erased from history, society, and the entire countries' narrative. How do you heal from pain when it's not acknowledged? Raazi makes steps in eroding this culture of silence. Something small that I think the film could have done better is more adequately mention East Pakistan/Bangladesh. The entire plot is centered around these moments before the military confrontation between India and Pakistan during East Pakistan's liberation yet they are a third party in their own independence story. See more

Kylo S Nov 15, 2018 Raazi, starring Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal, is an adaptation of the novel, Calling Sehmat, and is based on the true story of a young Indian woman, Sehmat. Set in 1971, as tensions were rising between Pakistan and India, Sehmat's father arranges Sehmat's marriage into a Pakistani military family in order to spy on them for the Indian government. The film depicts Sehmat's evolution as she grapples with her duty to her country and her own sense of morality, whilst functioning within a family unit. By superimposing a typical domestic lifestyle with the darkness of war, the film's depiction of war is harsh and unforgiving. Themes typically associated with morality and virtue in Bollywood, such as love, children, and religion, are manipulated or destroyed throughout the narrative. Thus, Raazi cleverly expresses the jarring reality of war. The film also twists the idea of nationalism into a perverse and ugly entity, one which most of characters use to justify abhorrent violence. Sehmat's extreme nationalism drives her actions as she falls deeper and deeper into a cycle of violence and inhumanity, struggling to control the chaos unfurling as her espionage risks being exposed. This is a departure from some of the typical celebratory connotations that nationalism often has within Bollywood films. Saba Bhaumik identifies this trend in many Bollywood films that, in the last decade or two, opt out of being political and instead focus on inducing feelings of nationalism, specifically through the trope of the "NRI", the non-resident Indian, coming home (Bhaumik, "Politics of Indian War Films"). Interestingly, Raazi does the complete opposite in telling a politically driven story and concurrently highlighting the problematic features of nationalism. Raazi is also innovative in it's lack of any distinct character or group that represents evil. This contrasts a film like Main Hoon Na, in which there is a clear villain who highlights the immorality of the war by instigating conflict between India and Pakistan. In Raazi, however, instead of just having one character to embody this evil, the moralities of all the characters are manipulated, leaving the viewer to question the very morality of war in it's essence. See more

Kylo W Nov 15, 2018 Raazi is a 2018 Bollywood film based off of Harinder S. Sikka's book Calling Sehmat. The true story of a young Indian woman, Sehmat, marrying a Pakistani soldier in order to spy on his father is an intense thriller which portrays a previously untold side of the Indo-Pakistani wars. Unlike many other Bollywood films, Raazi is starkly realistic. Instead of painting an idealistic world centered on love, the film tells the realistic story of war, with love barely having a place. The film portrays the destruction of the Bollywood moral universe as Sehmat goes from an empathetic student to having to murder for her job as a spy. Contrastingly to Veer-Zaara, which tells the story of an Indian and Pakistani falling in love in the bright Punjab countryside with the underlying political message that Pakistan and India should move beyond past tensions, Raazi has no happy ending and focuses more on Sehmat's journey as a spy than her romance with Iqbal. Similar to the both Zaara and Saamiya in Veer-Zaara, however, Sehmat proves to be an incredible feminist, especially by fearfully fulfilling the traditionally male role as a spy to fight for her country. But just as Daiya argues that Zaara's character is both a modern feminist and simultaneously still "performatively reproduces hegemonic relations of gendered patriarchal power", Sehmat falls into a similar characterization. While her character rejects many gendered stereotypes, she still leaves college to become a spy because her father asked her to then after her father dies her life is controlled by her male mentor. Raazi is a must see film because it tells the true story of a young Indian woman's contribution to the war. For a long time her contribution went unacknowledged, just as so many other women's contributions were. It also manipulates typical Bollywood themes to truly show the pervasiveness of war. By the end of the film the moral universe is no longer rectifiable. See more

Finn W Aug 17, 2018 Rubbish film. Shame people try to milk nationalism to make huge amounts of money while providing BJP/RSS propaganda. ... See more

Aug 11, 2018 A movie where even the in which side is not demonized

Finn W Aug 7, 2018 Brilliant, great movie and great performance

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Raazi

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