Review : Amu

AMU : IMPORTANT SUBJECT BUT FILM FALTERS

I’m watching Amu in 2008, while it was actually made in 2005, and released for the festival circuit in 2007, because the DVD version was made available only recently. The film was controversial because it pointed fingers at the government’s role in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. It’s been 24 years since, and almost no justice has been meted out.

It is to be noted that the director Shonali Bose, a UCLa film graduate, and niece of Ms. Karat, also wrote and produced this film, and even helped distribute it. Ms. Bose who was 19 when the carnage took place later volunteered in relief camps, where she heard harrowing tales of torture and killings. Understandably making the film was hard, because the government took umbrage and wanted to censor it.

Amu’s main focus is the 1984 riot, and the subject is indirectly introduced through the story of American UCLA graduate Kaju Roy who is in India vacationing with her very Bengali “bhadralok” family. Amu has been told that she is adopted and her biologiacal family was wiped out due to malaria. However, in India, she finds that that story (of her bilogical family) is shaky and learns of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots which orphaned many kids. She was adopted close to that time.

Investigating further with the help of Kabir, a bourgeoisie son of a rich, well-connected father, and pressing for clarification from her mother, Amu finally discovers the terrible truth.

I was a kid when these riots happened, in a city far removed from Delhi, so my memories of the anti-Sikh atrocities are dim. However, it is very clear that this is an important film, with an important tale to tell. The Indian nation seems to forget it’s mistakes and thus they reoccur; recall Godhra.

Konkona Sen Sharma plays Kaju very effectively, curious, naive, and trying to find her “roots”. Brinda Karat plays her adoptive mother Keya, and besides the fact that she is not a very good actress, she is also off-putting because she is an active Communist politician, notably most recently involved in the Communist Left pulling support from the Indian government on it’s decision to go ahead with the US nuclear deal. The third major character is Kabir, played by lanky Ankur Khanna, and he does fairly well. Also the scenes between Amu’s grandmother and cousin are executed very realistically.

Apart from the subject matter, this was not an exceptional film. The director does not hold the reins very tightly, and the screenplay isn’t very polished. It is a coherent film – that is we do get a sense of Amu’s terrible history, but it does lack dramatic impact. While Amu plods along in a fairly regular fashion, it fails to incite passion or feeling, on the protagonist’s behalf. The film does not feature intense, personal moments, and while Amu is facing a harsh truth, she is safe and sound and now priviliged. Thus my sympathy was more for the people who suffered through this and haven’t gotten justice yet, rather than Amu herself.

The 1984 riots were indeed gruesome, and it seems terrible to want “personal” moments to feel for a film (why can we not be automatically passionately outraged by the mere mention of such atrocities ?), but it is what it is. A mediocre film with a very important message.