This film is about love and revolution amid the political turmoil of 1970s India.

SYNOPSIS

India, 1975: the government declares a state of Internal Emergency. The resulting political chaos sees thousands jailed, while others fight bitterly to retain their civil rights. For Siddarth, Geeta and Vikram – three young students from very different social backgrounds – the choice between youthful idealism and political reality proves painful, and leads, years later, to a devastating outcome. Director Sudhir Mishra has forged an ambitious and satisfying drama: a political and romantic triangle between three people poised (like the country they inhabit) on the verge of self-discovery, and a deeply personal view of his homeland during an extremely turbulent period..

BACKGROUND

This fifth feature from Sudhir Mishra is a strange but by no means unsatisfying affair - poised as it is almost exactly halfway between Bollywood and the West. A French-Indian co-production (and boasting a European cinematographer and composer), it's a political drama, set for the most part amid the turbulence of the Indira Gandhi period. Songless, with much of its dialogue in English, it seems in some ways as conflicted as its young protagonists, pulled between opposing cultural values and filmmaking styles.

In 1969, three friends - Siddharth, a Hindu-Bengali Muslim, Vikram, a spoiled rich kid, and Geeta, a middle-class South Indian girl - are completing their studies. Siddharth wants to ""fundamentally change the system,"" but Vikram, coddled and indolent, couldn't care less; Geeta, meanwhile, loves Siddharth but is loved (albeit secretly) by Vikram. Years pass, and the rich boy becomes an even wealthier man, successful in business and fêted in society (for this, we learn, is the way of the world this film describes, one in which the rich only get richer, drifting ever further from accountability or care). But over the course of the following decade, his country slides into political chaos. Finally, in 1975, the government declares a state of national emergency, and begins weeding out political opponents - of whom one of the principal figures is Siddharth, now a fully-fledged activist with a desire for social revolution. Geeta is with him, of course, and so Vikram finds himself drawn again, reluctantly, into the lives of his more idealistic friends.

The film belongs to Roshan Ahuja, who plays Vikram as a kind of well-meaning playboy, less motivated by greed than a simple sense of entitlement. A man who, given the choice, would happily let the world burn around him if it meant an easier life, Vikram doesn't question the status quo, much less challenge it; the world, it seems to him, is set in its ways: beyond the powers of men to change, even were they so inclined. Ahuja's performance is charismatic, with the heat-seeking dynamism of an Indian leading-man, but it also displays an introspective side, uncommon in this kind of drama - and both Kay Kay Menon (as Siddharth) and Chitrangda Singh (as Geeta) seem slightly colourless by comparison, their characters too earnest and one-dimensional to ever truly engage our sympathy. But this is the film's secret allegiance, its concession to the ""thousand dreams"" of its home audience, for even while it appears to advocate social justice, it is quietly seduced by the glamour of Vikram's world, and thrilled by the giddy heights of his status. The scenes of political activism are thrilling, but it's the glimpses of privilege, you sense, that really excite the filmmakers. A paradox at its heart which is never quite resolved.

ABOUT SUDHIR MISHRA

Director Sudhir Mishra worked as a writer and an assistant director in the early to mid '80s before going on to direct his own films. His directorial debut came in 1987 with a film he also wrote, Yeh Woh Manzil To Nahin, which was selected for the London and Tokyo Film Festivals. Since then, Mishra has found success with films such as Dharavi (1992) and Chameli (2004), which is currently proving to be a great success in his native India.