Marked by a major army battle between India and Pakistan in the course of the Bangladesh liberation motion, the Indo-Pak Conflict of 1971 is a hotly debated topic. Whereas some consider the broadly taught historic narrative, detractors problem these information. Alongside comes Huey Tum Ajnabi that dares to cope with a topic so delicate, divisive and traumatic to the historical past of the Indo-Pak sub-continent. Does it do the topic justice? On this reviewer’s humble opinion, it fails miserably, and right here’s why.
The film exhibits excessive, unreasonable and nonsensical hate amongst the important thing teams, with Mukti tigers inflicting violence upon West Pakistanis (with out an obvious purpose) after forming an alliance with India. Indira Gandhi, maybe after having a revelation in a dream, resolve to help Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, chanting “Bharat Maata Ka Khoon Hogya, Ab Hum Sub Ka Khoon Karega [Bharat has been subjected to bloodshed, now we will kill everyone]” within the film.
There are little to no depictions of the motives of Bangladeshi liberation tigers for demanding a brand new land — they only inflict violence upon others for the sake of it. They’re the perpetrators and we’re the harmless victims, paying the value for being Pakistani. They’re portrayed as rapists, abusers, and whatnot. In reality, their accents are faux as will be. Take “shaala” — a spinoff of an Urdu phrase, “Do-shaala” [shawl] maybe? — for instance.
One other factor that I discovered problematic within the film was unrealistic (learn: optimistic) illustration of casualties on our aspect, with our troopers successful each combat. If there was an Oscar for films which have whitewashed historical past, Huey Tum Ajnabi would have made a clear sweep!
Dance was an instrumental a part of the story. Nonetheless, there have been too many mujra sequences that didn’t make sense. They labored initially however quickly misplaced impression and had been relegated to nothing greater than a plot gadget to increase runtime.
The love story angle was extraordinarily interesting however failed to completely spare the film from its misplaced destiny. That mentioned, the film deserves credit score for its trustworthy portrayal of intimacy between the lead protagonists. For the primary time maybe, we noticed husband and spouse coming shut to one another, as an alternative of simply holding fingers and magically producing a child within the subsequent episode.
Starring Mikaal Zulfiqar, Sadia Khan, Ayesha Omar, Samina Peerzada, Shamoon Abbasi, Sohail Ahmed, and Mehmood Aslam, amongst others, the film options sensible cinematography and intricacies of the evolving panorama of Pakistani cinema. The portrayal of miniature work, the sequence of marine ships and jet planes, and the interplay between Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Bangladeshi chief Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had been fairly nicely accomplished! Nonetheless, juxtaposing historic scenes with romantic scenes wasn’t rightfully accomplished. It felt like these are two separate films, forcefully tied collectively to tug within the lots.
Some dialogues additionally appeared irrelevant. As an example, “Tum mujhe maasi kehti ho na, Maasi ka matlab hota hai, Maa jaisi [You call me Maasi (your mother’s sister), that means I’m like your mother]”. Isn’t it a reasonably well-known proven fact that Maasi means so for avid customers of Indian content material, who’re already acquainted with the phrase, and its implications?
Directed by well-known journalist Kamran Shahid, the film confirmed some limitations in storytelling however brilliance in CGI. An honest 2/5.
