Word: netaji
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...story of the Indian leaders who opted to fight by more violent means is less familiar to us. Of these, Subhas Chandra Bose—known as “Netaji,” or “leader”—was one of the most influential and most controversial. Shyam Benegal, an accomplished Bombay director and one of the most celebrated figures of contemporary Indian cinema, has taken the last years of Bose’s life as the subject of his newest film, Netaji: The Last Hero...
Benegal spoke last Friday afternoon at an event hosted by the South Asia Initiative, to benefit tsunami victims in South and Southeast Asia, shortly before the world premiere of his newest film at the Harvard Film Archive. That presentation focused less on Netaji itself than on problems of identity and representation Benegal has encountered more generally throughout his career. After an introduction by Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs and the Director of the South Asia Initiative, Benegal discussed a number of issues in contemporary Indian film and culture, grouped loosely under the theme...
After such a role call, Netaji itself feels like a bit of a disappointment. The attempt to retain elements of Bollywood song-and-dance in what otherwise presents itself as a sober—and, at 3 hours and 42 minutes, certainly epic—history produces a somewhat bewildering montage, in the course of which it grows increasingly difficult to distinguish hagiography from farce...
However, what is perhaps most unsettling about Netaji is the juxtaposition of graphic violence with such peculiar jokes. It is unsettling to witness the readiness with which one dewy-eyed woman after another hands over food, coins or, in the most dramatic instance, an only son at the prompting of a few words from Bose and a crescendo of woodwinds (the bandshell must be behind the camp...
...disturbing because it does not spare us the fate that awaits the son—but also does not fully register its significance, does not make clear the connection between the nationalistic rapture of the mother and the explosions that will kill her last family member. In the end, Netaji does not sufficiently explore or evoke the ethical questions and complications that it should—particularly in a time when questions of violence and the deployment of violence in service of nation-statehood are so salient...