Empuraan,
with
its
gimmicky
violence
and
vigilante
posturing,
is
not
out
to
widen
your
perspective
or
open
up
history.
All
it
wants
to
do
is
pick
your
pockets,
observes
Sreehari
Nair.
To
the
makers
of
Empuraan,
the
right-wing
backlash
to
their
movie
must
have
come
as
a
godsend.
Thanks
to
that,
Empuraan
will
not
only
get
a
new
lease
of
life;
it
may
even
live
on
as
a
symbol
of
political
resistance.
Intellectual
cafes
will
compose
hymns.
Seedy
parlours
will
distribute
uncut
versions.
Students
of
sociology,
take
note.
This
is
a
lesson
in
how
an
eminently
unwatchable,
mostly
laughable
work
acquires
the
glamour
of
being
‘underground’
and
‘revolutionary’.
When
a
movie
takes
on
a
grand
historical
tragedy,
you
can
tell
if
‘its
eye’
is
trained
on
exploring
the
human
dimensions
of
the
tragedy
or
if
it’s
trained
on
making
a
killing
at
the
box
office.
And
Empuraan,
with
its
gimmicky
violence
and
vigilante
posturing,
is
not
out
to
widen
your
perspective
or
open
up
history.
All
it
wants
to
do
is
pick
your
pockets.
Among
the
floating
voices
applauding
Prithviraj’s
‘courage’,
I
heard
a
patronising
remark
being
passed
about
Kai
Po
Che.
The
gent
who
made
the
remark
probably
thinks
Abhishek
Kapoor’s
movie
‘too
detail-oriented
to
be
political’,
‘too
balanced
to
be
effective
muckraking’,
‘too
character-focused
to
be
editorial’.
But
let
us
set
aside
those
allegations
for
a
moment
and
look
back
to
that
very
well-done
melodrama,
which
had
as
its
spine
the
Gujarat
riots.
As
in
Empuraan,
Kai
Po
Che
too
had
a
character
whose
fiery
speeches
hinted
at
the
complexes
and
fears
running
inside
him.
Yet,
Abhishek
Kapoor
had
the
good
sense
to
not
turn
his
right-wing
goon
into
a
stock
villain,
a
motorised
poster
boy
for
the
great
tragedy.
Oh
no,
Kai
Po
Che
was
more
interested
in
looking
at
the
human
truth
that
accompanies
most
communal
riots:
The
movie
showed
us
that
in
times
of
such
riots,
it’s
the
people
you
once
considered
your
closest
friends,
the
people
whose
kids
once
played
with
your
kids,
that
you
first
end
up
targeting.
The
stinging
fact
that
underlines
all
communal
riots
is
the
high
percentage
of
‘intimate
crimes’
they
record
—
and
it
takes
a
visionary
artist
to
illustrate
such
a
fact.
On
the
other
hand,
what
Prithviraj
and
his
writer
Murali
Gopy
have
done
is
turn
a
painful
chapter
of
our
collective
history
into
a
setting
for
a
distant,
jacket-clad,
globe-trotting,
chopper-boarding
overlord
to
exercise
his
bloodlust.
Come,
come,
comrades,
let
us
not
kid
ourselves
here!
Those
who
believe
Empuraan
and
the
controversy
it
has
generated
represent
some
sort
of
triumph
for
a
particular
faction
of
our
political
spectrum
are
either
being
innocent
or
shortsighted.
The
right-wingers
who
brought
on
the
present
cuts
may
be
empty
and
thoughtless
but
do
not
overlook
the
delusions
of
those
liberals
who
seem
not
to
realise
that
the
exploitation
cinema
techniques
used
in
Empuraan
could
easily
be
used
by
a
cunning
filmmaker
to
make
a
cold,
calculating,
similarly
exploitative
recreation
of
Godhra,
a
Super-Sabarmati
Express,
if
you
will.
I
know
this
is
elementary,
and
reiterating
it
amounts
to
philosophical
parroting,
but
it’s
a
movie’s
aesthetic
that
decides
its
political
stance.
Empuraan
wants
to
cosy
up
to
the
liberals,
but
it
has
the
soul
of
a
right
wing
movie.
