Having read and heard(on TV) enough about this controversial movie, I was well prepared for hard hitting, even violent, cinema. Or so I thought. But no amount of preparation could lessen the impact of the blow it dealt to the solar plexus. Gut wrenching, as they say. Couldnt sleep that night. We keep believing in the innate goodness of human beings, yet horrors like the Godra riots keep happening quite regularly. We read the papers, dash off angry letters to papers, discuss among ourselves in the safe cocoons of our houses and then forget it. And we take pride in our" Resilience", "bouncing back to normality". Could it be that we are just guilty of indifference ? In the movie, an innocent family of parsis get affected by a riot which is a war between hindus and muslims ,totally unconnected to them, as a community. That is always the tragedy of mass violence. It causes unnecessary misery to unconnected people too. Parzania, made like a docudrama, lets us into the home of a family which could be your neighbour's . Or, horror of horrors, your own someday. Nobody is safe. It is this sense of terror that the film manages to instil in the viewers mind. Naziruddin shah manages to convey tons of pathos in the mere stoop of his shoulders, he even starts getting that vacant look of a cornered animal towards the latter half. Sarika is excellent. A shattered mother who yet tries to muster strength and courage in order to keep her remaining family in a shell of sanity . In one heartrending scene, she locks herself up in the bathroom and gives vent to her withheld grief, so that her young daughter will not see her . It broke my heart. There are scenes that seem biased, some are artificial, the Foreigner trying to research Gandhian Peace seems like a caricature. I cannot say whether I liked or disliked the movie. What is there to like or dislike in a narrative of a beastly tragedy ? But after the movie, some in my family commented: " where is the need to re-open old wounds with such films and fuel sentiments of vengeance all over again, when things have slowly settled down? " I dont know. VS
