Friday 1 May 2009

Partition

Recently I watched Partition, a movie with a story line built around an inter-racial love during the times of ethnic unrest when Pakistan split from India as a separate state. Well it has to be said theme that 'Love transcend all' is moving and the Canadian producer has done pretty good job in recreating an imagery consistent with what we have of the typical Indian society backed by some good musical compositions. I think the lead actor and actress has done a good job given that none of them are even Asian.

But I saw this fact itself has been subject to criticism in some quarters who suggest that an Indian lead actor couple would have brought more authenticity to the film. I also think this is reasonable as well. If you are narrating a typical Indian story line why would you go for non Asian actors when plenty of talent is present in India? Apart from that there are some ripe inaccuracies in the way the story is depicted. Almost all of the people in the story use English as their main form communication, one of the first inconsistencies I noticed straight away. And the way lovers express their affection (yes kissing :-)) is not very consistent with the conservative Asian culture even now(though constraints are lessening due to western influence) not to mention that this story line is narrating 50 years history. Some movie critics had even mentioned the way the story is narrated is not correct with the real historical events. Then again I don't think a movie should just a documentary totally depicting historical details in pin point detail. But disregarding or misinterpreting vital parts of the events may be problematic.

Had the above issues not been there it would have made real masterpiece about love without boundaries.