Kayoze Irani’s debut feature, produced by Karan Johar, fizzles into a loud, empty family feud set in Kashmir, with a poorly-written script that waves the white flag early
Sarzameen starts off on a promising note as an Army commander gravely expounds on how Kashmir may look breathtakingly beautiful with its scenic landscapes but on the inside it also happens to hide wounds that run deep.
Caught in the bloody spiral of continual terrorist attacks since 1992, thousands of innocents and their families die in this region, he says. If this foolishly lulls the viewer into thinking Sarzameen is all set to tap into the discord, distrust and fear playing out in Kashmir as a backdrop, you are on the road to perdition.
For this Hindi film, produced by Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions, and directed by Kayoze Irani Irani (who has earlier made a nuanced short film, Ankahi, for the Netflix anthology Ajeeb Dastaans), is primarily focused on the lives of its three protagonists, who matter much more than conflict-ridden Kashmir.
A son goes rogue
The film is just set in its stunning, icy locales, which provide grist for great long shots of gun-toting actors trudging through the snow, leaving red-blood streaks on a startling white landscape. (Remember Aamir Khan in Fanaa?)
Also, there are enough terrorists in this fractured land of Kashmir, who can be borrowed just to stoke a lingering friction between a strict Indian Army Colonel and his son. The terrorists exist here just for the Army Colonel Vijay Menon (played by a perpetually anguished-looking Prithviraj Sukumaran, which seems a waste really) to keep dishing out hollow, nationalistic mumbo-jumbo — about how nothing is bigger than ‘sarzameen ki salamati’ (safety of the country). Not even his son, who he is, incidentally, ashamed of since he stutters!
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To get a hackneyed plot moving, terrorists looking to seek revenge on the Colonel, kidnap his son Harman (Ibrahim Ali Khan) and brainwash him to kill, not for the sake of their ‘ideology’ but just to make ‘dad’ Menon squirm.
To make matters worse, the Colonel’s wife Mehrunissa (Kajol), who is seemingly caught in the crossfire between father and son, has her own axe to grind with the terrorists. Mehr, Menon and Harman are linked to the terrorists of the land but the latter are mere puppets. It is the emotional dynamics of this Menon trio that fascinates the director.
So, the director makes the film largely about a son battling ‘daddy issues’ (a trendy topic in Hindi cinema today, where the hero then gets a license to go on a macho strut). Sarzameen also makes much ado about the agony Menon has to undergo when the prodigious love for his country is tested in the face of a son gone rogue.
No room for deep dives
Colonel Menon, whose kidnapped school-going son Harman returns home eight years later as an adult, has to figure out the dark secrets his transformed self-assured son is hiding. What is bizarre is that this trio get shot on and off and emerge alive in the next scene.
There’s not much to recommend in Sarzameen. It seems unfortunate that the writers, Soumil Shukla and Arun Singh, failed to shape a solid narrative. Neither is there any memorable face-offs between Menon and Harman. Less said about Kajol’s Mehr the better, as she suddenly emerges as the point of a big twist in the film, with some laughable, embarrassing backstory.
Ibrahim Ali Khan as a bearded, kohl-eyed terrorist seems convincing, but in emotional scenes, he just caves in.
There is no clarity on why Harman switches sides in the end as well. There is one sequence in which Harman (Ibrahim) meets his younger version (played by Ronav Parihar) by a picturesque riverside that shows some promise.
But there is no time for deep dives as the film has to pack in some high-voltage action scenes with gun fights in a smoky turbine room for visual effects. A bomb is imaginatively placed under the stage on which the Army commander is delivering an inaugural speech. Are there no intelligence checks before an Army commander arrives at a spot in Kashmir?
Kashmir as setting: Squandered
After watching Sarzameen, nostalgia hits for a Hindi cinema that is more coherent. For example, Shakti (1982) effectively showcases the angst between a disciplinarian father and a son harbouring an emotional wound. In the film, Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) is deeply conflicted as a child when his honest policeman father (Dilip Kumar) refuses to cave into pressure from the thugs who kidnap him. He carries the grudge as an adult and chooses to walk on a path that leads to darkness.
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Seasoned actors Prithviraj and Kajol bravely soldier on in a film with no legs to stand on. Ibrahim as a bearded, kohl-eyed terrorist (will someone tell the director that this terrorist persona is no longer politically correct), seems convincing. However, in emotional scenes he just caves in. Incidentally, to keep the nepo conversation going, the director Kayoze Irani happens to be actor Boman Irani’s son and also made his debut with Karan Johar’s Student of the Year (2012), as one of the bumbling students. Never mind, it is all in the family.
Why was Sarzameen set in Kashmir at all? In Haider (2014), Vishal Bharadwaj drew on the despair and fear prevailing in Kashmir when militancy was at its height in 1995, to artfully play out his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In Haider, Kashmir is an integral part of the narrative, reflecting the socio-political complexities and human tragedies unfolding at that time.
If only, the writers of Sarzameen had given more thought and written a screenplay that could have used a troubled Kashmir better. Before the titles roll in the end, the makers acknowledge all those who “served to protect and serve the nation”. Somehow, that too just doesn’t ring true.
Sarzameen streams on Jio Hotstar from July 25
