Raazi (2018), directed by Meghna Gulzar
Review of Raazi / राज़ी (2018), directed by Meghna Gulzar
On a Tuesday morning, I opened up Amazon Prime Video and saw this at the very top of my list, I clicked it almost immediately. I didn’t recognize her at first, but then after a minute or two, it registered that this movie was starring Alia Bhatt. And it was a good film, a bit propaganda-y, and I will say that I enjoyed it quite a bit. But there’s some nuances in it that do need to be discussed, which I’ll do later in this review. Now that I’ve said this, let’s dig right into it, shall we?
Content
If you can’t tell by the YouTube video cover, or even the poster of this movie, this is a crime espionage thriller. But it’s not like the crime gangster films we often see from the United States. Our main character is Sehmat, a Kashmiri girl is who half-Muslim half-Hindu. She’s a normal college student until one day her father calls her home, where he reveals he’s dying of lung cancer, he’s marrying her off, and she’s going to become a double agent for India in Pakistan. The year is 1971 and the flames of war are beginning to fan in the Indian subcontinent: East Pakistan, now known as Bangladesh, is seeking independence from West Pakistan. And India is going to side with the east.
And so Sehmat leaves her normal life behind in Kashmir and joins her new husband in Pakistan, whose family she’s supposed to be spying on. They’re big political people in Pakistan and are involved with the army. This spirals into a series of events that ends in tragedy for all of the people involved. But at the same time it also doesn’t make sense how little security these people have with documents and secure information. Sehmat literally walks into her father-in-law’s office, a high-ranking military figure, and straight-up takes important documents and transmits the information back to Delhi. The clothing also seemed…very contemporary. I’m not an expert on fashion in the Indian subcontinent, but it looks really modern.
This was a really tight film. The script is solid and the acting is good, keeping you on the edge of your seat if you’re worried that Sehmat was going to get caught. I liked how this is a female-focused film, because it’s not often we get that in a serious Bollywood film. I could tell that this was done by a female director by the sheer amount of care that went into the character of Sehmat. My favorite scene with this was when she cried naked in the shower. That was a really powerful scene to watch on screen.
If you look at the setting and the plot, it’s very simple. But the actors brought this to life in a way that is very much a thriller and refreshing to see. We also didn’t completely demonize Pakistanis, which is a plus for Hindi cinema. It did make the war seem very much India versus Pakistan, although, in reality, it was more Bangladesh-Pakistan. So if you’re not familiar with the history, you’re not going to understand this nuance as much.
Overall Thoughts
It’s a film that forces you to think what will you do for love. Sehmat does this out of the love and devotion for her father, but then she actually falls in love with her Pakistani husband. And, in the thrilling climax of the film, we are asked what comes first: the love for a country or the love we have for another? In Sehmat’s case, she did it for her father, not her country. The background music and score in this movie absolutely adds to the ambiance in a way that’s pretty good, I found the music to be very poetic.
