A peace offering

DURING the promotions of his 1998 film Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg famously said, “Every war movie, good or bad, is an antiwar movie.” Francis Truffaut had already given a counter 15 years before: “There’s no such thing as an antiwar film.”

- KARTIK BHARDWAJ

Actor Agastya Nanda in Ikkis

In the context of Hindi cinema, I would go on to say “most war movies are boring war movies”. It’s a dead genre unable to break out of its patterns and the biggest reason for that is because it actively rejects nuance. The soldier at the centre of a Hindi war film can’t seem to have a dimension to his personality that is bigger than the incessant urge to bring glory to his motherland. He is a white character who can’t have grey motivations. There can’t be questions raised on nationalism itself as an idea. As a result, most Indian war films seem like an over two-hour recruitment advertorial by the Ministry of Defence.