Screen Share | Unusual war movies with atypical heroes

Aamir Khan in ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ (right) and Sivakarthikeyan in ‘Amaran’.

The recent Tamil blockbuster Amaran opens with a visually arresting action set piece. Yet my favourite scene is when the protagonist, Major Mukund Varadarajan (played by Sivakarthikeyan), convinces the father of his girlfriend, Indhu Rebecca Varghese (essayed by Sai Pallavi), to get them married.

Mukund loves Rebecca just as much as he worships the Indian Army. He calls her his ‘uyir’ (life). The biopic of the Ashok Chakra recipient, Mukund, is told through the eyes of Rebecca, who backs her husband’s passion to the hilt. Rajkumar Periyasamy refreshingly dedicates a major part of the film’s run-time to a heartfelt love story, given that the genre is known for the glorious portrayal of combat scenes.

By also giving prominence to an Army officer’s personal life, Amaran stays clear of valorising only the military. A couple of decades ago, this approach would have been unthinkable in commercial cinema. Take, for example, JP Dutta’s 1997 epic war drama Border (on the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971), which thrived on extreme nationalism. The film’s enemy caricature and melodrama are war-movie cliches refreshingly avoided by modern-day films like Laal Singh Chaddha.

Dutta, a war-film specialist, loves ruggedness in the war field. “My heroes are macho men who make women feel secure in their arms,” he once said. Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha, an adaptation of Tom Hanks’ Forrest Gump, is the antithesis of a macho man. A pure soul, Laal Singh doesn’t like to kill anybody, so much so that the highly compassionate fictitious character saves an enemy during the 1999 Kargil War and forges a friendship for a lifetime with him, making him repent his act of terrorism.

The world calls him a slow-witted guy, but Laal Singh is a self-assured man who doesn’t make a big deal about his abilities. The character is a far cry from the convenient idea of an army officer who is asked not to be soft.

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Kannada’s Muttina Haara has the staple ingredients of a war film, yet it is special for its attempt to explore the mental stress of an army officer and his wife who lose their son during the bloodshed. In Farhan Akhtar’s Lakshya, Karan (Hrithik Roshan) is so confused about his life that he decides to join the Indian Army after watching Arnold Schwarzenegger bust his enemies in Commando on TV. Karan’s aimless journey finds purpose on the battlefield.

My friend, not a film enthusiast, looks to Lakshya whenever he is down in the dumps. That is the potential of a war movie which doesn’t simplify the story to stick to a formula.

From The Hindu cinema team, a fortnightly column recommending films and shows tied to a mood, theme, or pop culture event.