A nonetheless from Ae Watan Mere Watan. (courtesy: saraalikhan95)
With historical past and politics more and more serving as automobiles of blatant propaganda within the arms of some Mumbai filmmakers, it’s with trepidation that one approaches Ae Watan Mere Watan. Mercifully, it seems that the historic thriller produced by Dharmatic Leisure and Amazon MGM Studios doesn’t have agenda-tinged blinkers on.
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video and that includes Sara Ali Khan as a khadi-clad freedom fighter taking up the would possibly of the British, Ae Watan Mere Watan doesn’t fall prey to extra because it brings to the display a little-known however essential chapter of India’s independence motion.
Whereas the liberty fighters within the movie shout slogans, categorical unwavering anti-colonial intent and resist a brutal regime, Ae Watan Mere Watan is something however given to shrill posturing. The restraint that the movie demonstrates in peddling patriotism is commendable however it doesn’t sadly translate into one thing greater than the sum of its components.
Ae Watan Mere Watan, directed by Kannan Iyer who debuted a decade in the past with the supernatural horror movie Ek Thi Dayan, is not as impactful because it ought to have been provided that it doesn’t lack parts that immediately resonate in an period wherein information is within the midst of a protracted foolish season.
Scripted by Darab Farooqui, Ae Watan Mere Watan revolves round a interval of freedom fighter Usha Mehta’s life. Sara Ali Khan, taking part in the principal character, is manner too porcelain and dainty to convey the remarkably doughty lady’s fierce willpower.
Impressed by Mahatma Gandhi’s “do or die” name as a part of the Stop India motion, Usha Mehta, then solely 22 and at loggerheads together with her pro-Churchill judge-father (Sachin Khedekar) who sees no purpose why the household ought to facet with the Congress, began a secret radio station in 1942 to transmit the message of independence to the folks.
The movie covers solely a quick interval of historical past. Usha’s defiance lasted a number of months earlier than the police clamped down on her and her associates. For violating a ban imposed on radio stations throughout World Battle II, she was jailed for 4 years. However neither the concern of penal motion nor the prospect of her father’s ire is ready to cease the younger girl.
Gandhi, performed by Uday Chandra, seems in two scenes. The main focus of Ae Watan Mere Watan is on the socialist chief Ram Manohar Lohia (Emraan Hashmi is an prolonged visitor look). The latter’s voice is heard repeatedly on the airwaves and elsewhere as Usha and her associates, Kaushik (Abhay Verma) and Fahad (Sparsh Shrivastava), run Congress Radio from a secret location and dodge the regulation so long as they’ll.
Hindi cinema has by no means given Lohia his due. By granting him a rightful pleasure of place within the Usha Mehta story, Ae Watan Mere Watan supplies the viewers with a big piece of historical past that has hitherto not been highlighted sufficient. Hashmi, an actor who thrives on being easy, fleshes out Lohia with out resorting to unduly flashy strategies.
Whereas the efficiency is sufficiently weighty, the movie seems to wrestle with tempo and depth. Not a lot the cloak-and-dagger drama that it ought to ideally have been as a thriller forged in a traditional mould full with motion scenes and chases, Ae Watan Mere Watan lacks the intrinsic energy to generate real stress and a way of hazard.
The movie equates the airwaves with wings. Unfold your wings, Mahatma Gandhi exhorts his followers. Usha intends to do exactly that – search freedom with the assistance of the radio indicators that she transmits “from someplace in India”.
Mumbai Police inspector, John Lyre (Alexx O’Nell), is on the path of the folks behind the key radio station. The climax of the movie (components of that are revealed in a quick prelude) centres on a raid on a constructing that homes the clandestine broadcasting set-up.
A cop factors a gun at Usha as she runs down a staircase. The sequence cuts to a scene wherein the protagonist, as a 10-year-old lady, is in an open-air classroom in Surat the place a instructor explains to her the importance of the liberty wrestle.
The staging is considerably stuffy and the emphasis is on dialogues that sound extra like speeches than conversational exchanges. However a few factors that Ae Watan Mere Watan makes have up to date relevance and deserve point out.
In a single scene, Usha asserts that information empowers folks. She makes the assertion is response to an affiliate’s lament that newspapers of the day are spreading falsehoods. What we see and suppose, he provides, is being managed by these sources of data. The official channels of communication are spreading false information, Usha says, and it’s, subsequently, crucial to get the reality to the folks.
In one other sequence, Usha and her comrades focus on the pitfalls of andh-bhakti (blind obeisance), citing the instance of Lohia who, regardless of idolising Jawaharlal Nehru, would suppose nothing of criticising him when the necessity arose.
At one other juncture within the movie, Lohia is cited once more to stress that the battle towards a tyrant is not waged essentially with an eye fixed on triumphing over him. One fights a tyrant as a result of he’s a tyrant. Ae Watan Mere Watan doesn’t venture patriotism as an finish in itself nor does it painting it as a panacea for all issues. It goes past the slim confines of what notion stands for immediately.
Ae Watan Mere Watan addresses the themes of affection and revolution, freedom and unity, reality and pragmatism with an undercurrent of subversion that offers it an edge and elevates it above the chronicle that it’s out to craft within the service of telling a narrative unsung heroes of India’s freedom wrestle.
The primary-rate manufacturing design ensures that interval particulars don’t go awry. Director of pictures Amalendu Chaudhary lends an evocative high quality to the movie’s visible palette.
Ae Watan Mere Watan makes its factors with readability and directness. It tells a story that has meat, however the storytelling type that the movie adopts stops it considerably wanting being both persistently riveting or memorably rousing.
Forged:
Sara Ali Khan, Sachin Khedekar, Abhay Verma, Sparsh Shrivastav, Alexx O’ Nell, Anand Tiwari, Emraan Hashmi
Director:
Kannan Iyer
