Unit 3 - Blog Query - Earth and its Critics

Blog: Who among the reviewers did you agree with more and why?

Actually, I don’t think I agreed with either.

As I noted in my discussion group response, C.J.S. Wallia’s review made the movie sound like a superficial cartoon about life in India at the time of partition. I read his review before watching the movie, and was pleasantly surprised that I disagreed with his analysis.

Wallia’s interpretation was primarily political, and minimized the human elements of the movie. He seemed to want to champion the Sikhs, defending them from the movie’s unfair attacks – but I didn’t see that the Sikhs were singled out for special attention. (One Sikh at the start of the moview was very abrasive, but the others in the story were much more subdued and humble.)

Zarminae Ansari’s review was cursory and focused on the political struggles of the nation that it basically overlooks the same story Wallia overlooks: a tragic Romeo and Juliet-like love story, with Muslims and Hindus being the Capulet’s and Montagues of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Ansari did, at least, talk about the movie's characters and their personalities.

I found the conceit of Lenny-Baby as the story teller awkward, but as a story device it was critical, allowing Shanta to be associated with the group young men of different religious orientations. As a woman of good reputation, she simply couldn’t be around so many other young men and not ruin her reputation. Lenny-Babby was critical. I don’t understand why she had to be crippled.

Lenny-Baby always liked Dil Navaz (Ice Candy Man) best, and was, I think, intent on matching him with Shanta. She knew he was interested in Shanta – and Lenny-Baby showed her unhappiness, a number of times, when Hassan was getting Shanta’s attention. I think when she revealed Shanta’s whereabouts to Ice Candy Man, she was still “match-making,” but simply didn’t understand how badly it would turn out. (LB assumed ICM loved Shanta and would protect her. Bad assumption.)

Wallia condemns the movie's story line as weak and says the characters were poorly developed. I thought the story line was just fine, thank you: a tragic love story that deveoped through an increasingly hostile period. That hostile period was a required context in which the tragedy could play out. The key characters where well-enough developed to allow us to empathize and sympathize with them, and feel horror when things went badly.

Wallia's criticism about the film’s lack of clarity, from a historical/political perspective, was possibly correct – but, I think his criticism on these points were arguably irrelevant. The movie was a story like War and Peace – a story of love in a time of troubles.

Ansari seemed to have her characters confused, nothing that “Initially, the Masseur provides the comic relief as the peacekeeping charmer, disinterested in politics. He is a charming rogue who plays upon the religious superstitions of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.)”

Actually, that more properly describes the behavior of Ice Candy Man, who played fortune teller, and totally befuddled a number of different people, including Muslims and Sikhs, alike. ICM and Hassan BOTH worked to defuse tempers early in the movie -- and Hassan later risked his life to help Sikh friends.

The movie’s context said politics – but I think the focus of the story more on the relationships between three or four main characters; the religious and cultural strife was just there to add grist to the mill… It was a tragic love story ending with Hassan dead, and Shanta, if not dead, living what was left of her life in the brothels of Lahore.

Dil Navaz was a man scorned and a villain without redeeming traits.