August 12, 2007
'Chak De India' - A Tale of Exceptional Grit By Subhash K. Jha
Film: "Chak De India"; Cast: Shah
Rukh Khan, Shilpa Shukla, Sagarika Ghatge, Chitrashi Rawat and
others; Director: Shimit Amin; Ratings: *** 1/2
First things first! "Chak De India" is an outright winner. A triumph
of the spirit, and of craftsmanship!
While director Shimit Amin of "Ab Tak Chhappan" fame has crafted a
film with immense staying power and exceptional integrity and gusto,
the thought-process behind the endearing endeavour harks back to a
series of well-crafted Hollywood films about team spirit, the
low-spirited team and the burnt-out disgraced and exiled coach who
motivates the team and galvanises his own dormant spirit into a
wide-alert status.
Dig in. It's all there. And yet writer Jaideep Sahni takes the
expected tale to heights of great expectations with an endearing
tone of expression.
Amin turns the triumph-of-spirit formula inside out.
While narrating a fairly predictable story of a down-and-out
all-girls' hockey team's journey into global triumph, the director
brings into play a kind of abiding charisma that's born out of a
sincere passion for a neglected sport and that even more neglected
spirit of collective aspirations.
A certain formulism runs through all films about seeming losers who
triumph on the field against all cynicism. But beyond that
elementary reading there ticks a substantial heart of gold in this
tale of molten motivations.
The question of the Indian Muslim's identity in the face of an
often-suspicious majority surfaces early in the clenched narration,
as Kabir Khan (Shah Rukh) is accused of selling-out a crucial game
of hockey to Pakistan.
Amin and his writer don't let you down. Every grim layer of
'message' is toned down and polished up to highlight and accentuate
the cinematic quality without losing out on sheer relevance of the
moment and its after-shocks.
The ragged bunch of girls from all over the country gather under one
umbrella to give the cynics a run for their money. You watch them
with a distant curiosity, which soon evolves into a keen interest in
their progress report.
The game never looks contrived. And the greenroom chat is filled
with punctuations of immense mirth. Happily, the film never lapses
into a verbose rendering of the awakening conscience.
By the time the director and his grim protagonist get a grip over
the girls' athletic abilities and their blind spots we are
completely hooked, watching not the socio-political issues but a
film that pushes the envelope by taking the formula film on a jaunty
journey across a craggy hockey field.
The dialogues are quite often the stuff bumper stickers are made of.
"There's room for only one goonda in this team, and that's me," the
snarling coach tells team bully Bindiya Naik, played with
instinctive strength by Shilpa Shukla.
The drama emanates in a rush of warm feelings from the interactive
tensions between pairs from the team, for instance the vain
Chandigarh player Preeti Sabarwal (Sagarika Ghatge) and the
diminutive 'mirchi' from Haryana Komal Chautala (Chitrashi Rawat) or
for that matter the flavourful frisson between the ostracised Kabir
and the hockey federation which collectively sneers at his
aspirations for the all-girls' hockey team.
Of course, you know it's all going to come together in a magnificent
whoosh of athletic splendour at the end.
Still, you are completely hooked, enraptured and in total empathy
with the girls as they head for Melbourne to bring back the gold
medal for a neglected game. By the time the girls get into bordered
white saris you are smiling protectively at these children from the
third world.
Idealistic and dreamy? You bet! Isn't that what cinema was always
meant to be?
"Chak De India" takes us back to the joyous days of watching movies
where the heroes began by being unfairly cut down to size and then
progressed to being warriors of the dark night fighting their way
out of the negativity that surrounds their dreams.
Several sequences stand out for their glorious grip over the grammar
of cinema. The sequence at McDonald's, where the hockey team beats
up a gang of eve teasers, is so deliciously fulfilling you want to
applaud the writer and director for manoeuvring the gender war into
an urbane recreational zone without trivialising the larger issues
involved.
In terms of the tight but unobtrusive technique applied to Amin's
narration "Chak De India" qualifies as one of the finest
sports-based dramas in living memory, on par with the poignant
sportsmanship of "Chariots Of Fire", if only there was theme music
to match the other film.
The editing is never cruel to the sportive spirit. We get to watch
the girls playing hockey for as long as required without being
subjected to redundant visual hammering.
Finally though, the film is a triumph for Shah Rukh Khan. Stripped
of the lover-boy image, unadorned by the romantic props that have
given his super starry image that supple longevity and power, Shah
Rukh stares straight into his character Kabir's conscience and isn't
afraid to mirror some uncomfortable home truths about how we treat
our minorities, be it the Muslim Indian, the publicly active woman -
watch the arrogant cricket player smirk at his hockey-playing
fiancée's dreams - or just the female gender trying to be on a par
with the opposite sex.
The girls on the team remain with you after their on-field victory
because there's a far larger victory navigating their karma to a
final hurrah.
Beyond the tale of the triumph of the spirit, there lies the triumph
of the spirit of cinema.
After a point it doesn't matter whether the girls are playing
hockey.
It's not the sport. It's the spirit that shines through in every
glistening frame of this tale that needed to be told before hockey
became as obsolete as films about people who play to redeem their
souls.
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