Bhavna Talwar’s debut film is an insightful and sensitive take on religion. A bit like that good-hearted Yash Chopra film Dharamputra in that it says Hindus and Muslims are mirror images, that a Mustafa can easily be a Kartikeya and vice versa.
Dharm shows varied faces of Hinduism—the orthodox, the exploitative, the mercenary and also the militant right wing. And it ends by discounting them all to take up a liberal cause. At the centre of the action is the towering figure of Pandit Ram Narayan Chaturvedi (Kapur). After Maqbool, Kapur is in spectacular form yet again, using his entire physical being, including that pronounced rotund belly, to become the character. He is a complex man who lives by the sacred religious texts, hard and unflinching in adhering to the tenets and also painfully ritualistic. The relationship with his wife (Supriya) is especially interesting. She is devoted to him, will even press his feet at night, and yet there’s a cute flirtation, a gentle sparring that seems to transcend the formality and structure in the relationship. Panditji believes that a woman without a husband has no status. At the same time, he is modern enough to allow his patron’s daughter to study in college. Caught between opposite pulls—the traditional and the progressive—he leans a little towards the former. Panditji’s world changes irrevocably when a small child arrives in his house and gets adopted by the family. The kid softens the hardliner in him, makes him receptive to emotions and eventually makes him go through a crisis in faith to understand the true meaning of dharm: humanity, unity, peace, harmony.
The film is elegant and languid in its pace, even the potentially high drama scenes flow soft and easy. The music is lilting. It shows the Hindu rituals in the minutest of details, all lush and glorious. Benaras, shot ethereally, looks like a perfect National Geographic image. The end gets a bit preachy and simplistic but the film holds well overall. What irks is the token Westerner trying to grapple with the complexities of an alien culture and falling in love with a Hindu girl. Can we stop using the "gora" device now please?
High Fives
Bollywood
1. Fool N Final
2. The Train
3. Shootout At Lokhandwala
4. Cheeni Kum
5. Life In A Metro
Hollywood
1. Ocean’s Thirteen
2. Pirates of Caribbean: World’s End
3. Knocked Up
4. Surf’s Up
5. Shrek The Third
Country
1. Relentless (Jason Aldean)
2. Some Hearts (Carrie Underwood)
3. Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift)
4. Let It Go (Tim McGraw)
5. One Of The Boys (Gretchen Wilson)
Courtesy: Film Information
