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Parzania |
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| Movie: | Parzania |
| Director: | Rahul Dholakia |
| Genre: | Social/Offbeat |
| Start Cast: |
Naseeruddin Shah, Sarika, Master Farzan Dastoor, Sheeba Chaddha, Raj Zutshi, Asif Basra, Pearl Barsiwalla, Corin Nemec |
| Our Rating: |
*** |
| Review By: | Ashwani Kumar Singh |
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 Right after 5 years of communal massacre in Godhra, NRI director Rahul Dholakia enters the bollywood arena with his film ‘Parzania' casting some of the finest artists like Naseerudin Shah, Sarika etc in English. The story is based on the inhumane pandemonium throughout Gujarat following Godhra train incident. The story revolves around a middle class Persian family residing in a walled Muslim mohalla in Behrampur (one of the most affected region during the riots). Cyrus (Naseerudin Shah) is a projectionist in Ahmedabad's theatre married to Shernaz (Sarika) having two children Parzan (Parzan Dastur) and Dilshad (Pearl Barsiwala) living happily. Rahul Dholakia comes up with an impartial American character Allan played by Corin Nemec to look afresh at the communal psychology of Indian society. Allan comes to study Gandhi but gets the taste of communal violence .
In the first half of the film, Director has tried to portray the life of a happy family of Cyrus, whose son Parzan is the lynchpin of the movie. Naughty as he is, Parzan is caught listening radio in his classroom and playing in his dream world, ‘Parzania' with his little sister Dilshad.
Cyrus as a projectionist explains the difference between muslims and Persians to his son Parzan. Sarika is playing the character of a typical Indian housewife taking care of her family. Dilshad is a very sweet and fresh face to the industry taking promises from his brother Parzan to give him gifts. Director also executed the character of Dilshad very finely.
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 The film is based on Godhra riots, controversy also came along with the movie. All scenes in the movie try to depict that the whole massacre was pre-planned by Gujarat government and Sangh Pariwar in retaliation to the Godhara Kand. In the movie, a minister gives aggressive speeches against a particular community and evokes people's sentiments against a community. Director shows activist's wearing Shri Ram scarves and a saffron band on their forehead, which is not justifiable at all. It is in a way an effort to evoke the hatred feelings among people.
No doubt the performances by the actors are very good and they helps director to make scenes more realistic. Riots and post riot scenario inspite of some factual flaws are also executed very realistically including the review made by NHRC. In the later half, movie plot returns to it main theme that of the efforts made by the family in search of their son Parzan who gets lost from the family during rescue of fired house. But the search remains partial till the date. The family of Dara Mody on whom the whole ‘Parzania' film is based is still looking for their missing son ‘Azhar'.
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 This film has raised fresh hopes of getting their son back as they still think that their son is alive and he is in Gujarat itself. In the same row the film ends with a photograph of Azhar and a public appeal showing his family's contact numbers, which is a different and brave end to the movie. But as the film is released in English and failed to reach the Indian masses, Dara mody's hopes are somehow affected. But getting released in Indian cinema with CBFC's ‘A' certification is a great success for Dholakia. Naseeruddin Shah once again proves his acting potential and similary Sarika too made an impressive return to Bollywood after a long time. The film is an effort to warm the political sector and some of social arenas to remind them of the issue. It is an effort, which can be lauded for sheer braveness of the director to make a movie on such a controversial issue. |
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