Dhurandhar being the talk of the town, with some people being up in arms about it being a ‘propaganda’ film, and coming across this post about Raazi, compels me to compare the two and how they were received differently by certain people on the Left.
First, let’s set aside how similar and different the two movies are from each other.
Both are spy thrillers, and while Raazi adopts a somewhat grounded approach, Dhurandhar uses heightened action as a tool. Both involve spies leaving their motherland to serve in a foreign nation that’s in a perpetual state of hostility with theirs. Both find love (Sehmat with Iqbal and Hamza/Jaskirat with Yalina) and camaraderie (Sehmat with Iqbal’s family and Hamza with Rahman and Uzair), which clash with their duty.
They are, however, different in the sense that Raazi was meant to be an adaptation of a book that is meant to be the true account of a real spy’s life and experiences whereas Dhurandhar is a fictional tale from the perspective of Jaskirat, who is an amalgamation of countless, nameless spies, and is woven around real events and figures.
So, why are the same group of people who most likely had a warm approach towards Raazi, are not only averse to Dhurandhar but feel visibly threatened by it? What does it say about them? And how do the fairly distinct approaches adopted by their respective narratives come to play here?
Raazi………….came across like a fantasy. One that tragically ended because Sehmat had to choose what appeared to be a thankless duty assigned by people who didn’t care for her over the love of her life (as it was depicted in the movie’s narrative) and betray him and his family, who loved and trusted her. It was framed in a manner that made Iqbal and his family appear as victims caught in the crossfire, with Sehmat being punished with the burden of guilt. Oh, and by the way, there is another tiny detail that’s thrown into the plot for context and left there to be overlooked: Sehmat’s husband and the male members of his family happened to be high-ranking officials in the Pakistani army. The same army that was pillaging its way through Bangladesh and committing grotesque war crimes, while the events of the movie were going on. We were conveniently not shown what Iqbal and his family thought about it and the only basis on which we had to judge their characters was how wonderfully they all treated Sehmat who wasn’t some stranger getting tortured in their war miles away in Bangladesh but their darling wife/daughter in law/sister in law.
Dhurandhar, on the other hand, lures Hamza/Jaskirat and even the viewers into the charming foe’s thrall only to break the reverie with a bitter dose of reality: That someone who treats the people they consider their own well, someone who is capable of love and concern, also holds within them the capacity for unimaginable evil. Rahman Dakait loved his wife and his children, cared for Hamza, but was also laughing and cheering at the deaths of innocents in Mumbai, and betrayed his people who held him in highest regard. Reason? To him, some didn’t register as human, and some simply weren’t that important. It is not a contradiction but a duality that humans are fully capable of. It was also a grim reminder to Jaskirat that this is why failure wasn’t an option and why his duty would always hold precedence over Rahman or anyone else over there. Dhar could have easily depicted Rahman as a mustache twirling villain and Uzair as a mindlessly evil character, but not only did he showcase their humane sides, but also made them more charismatic than their real counterparts ever were. To me, it came across like having faith in the audience’s intelligence and judgement that they would be able to enjoy the actors’ performances while understanding fully well why the characters deserve death and worse and be reminded of the disastrous impact of terrorism. Meanwhile, Raazi had to erase Abhinav, who was an important person in Sehmat’s life, and alter her relationship with her bosses, which were two major deviations from the source material, for the narrative to stand on its feet.
What a pity because it shows which storyteller between the two was more secure of the story they wanted to tell.
I might be wrong, but maybe people cannot stand Dhurandhar because it rips off the romanticized blindfold they willingly tied over their eyes and forces them to stare at the real people and events they would rather forget. And I am not talking about Jaskirat or Rahman Dakait, but about the hijacking. About the Parliament attack (that happened when a BJP government was in power, by the way). About the 26/11. About unsung heroes like the spies who risk their lives but are neither rewarded nor feted, and the brave Kamlesh Kumari ji of whom I am sure many weren’t aware. Or maybe I am giving the apathetic bunch way too much credit.