Desecration of a Sacred Memory

With films based on real life characters/events increasingly getting entangled in legal battles, it's time to go back to the storyboard and ask the moot question—is ethical consent possible in cinema?

- Apeksha Priyadarshini

IN the dingy outhouse of her marital home, surrounded by blossoming roses, Saira (Vartika Singh) pays a visit to Shazia (Yami Gautam Dhar), the first wife of her husband Abbas (Emraan Hashmi). She is angry, desperate. A case of maintenance after divorce, filed by Shazia against Abbas, has been dragging on for years. The unrelenting legal battle is at the root of the growing distance between Saira and her husband. Abbas is now ready to move the Supreme Court against a High Court order that has been issued in favour of Shazia.

"Why are you doing this? Didn't you love him?" asks Saira. "Love isn't always enough," says Shazia. "I also demand dignity."

Haq is a quietly powerful film. The performances are not necessarily hammy. The protagonist, played by Dhar, is rather restrained in her execution. The arguments of the film are moving and the undergirding logic of undoing patriarchal customs has the potential to gather public sympathies. But the crucial questions remain: Is the representation of events, as they transpired, true to the life of Shah Bano Begum, whose landmark legal case for maintenance after divorce was the ‘inspiration’ behind the film? More pertinently, must the reel bear the burden to be faithful to the real?