Firaaq

The real strength of the film lies in the way the director manages to say it like it is. [Nandita] Das pulls no punches as she lays out her characters, and articulates their points of view without descending into mawkishness or melodrama.

Nandita Das's thought-provoking first outing Firaaq examines the impact of communal violence on human relationships.

This pithy and haunting film goes deep into the psychological and mental anguish the communal riots caused, and through that, makes a plea for peace and harmony.

Firaaq  HE GHOULS OF GENOCIDE IN AN EXTEMPORE EMOTION Directed by: Nandita Das Written by: Nandita Das & Suchi Kothari Starring Naseeruddin Shah, Deepti Naval, Shahana Goswami, Paresh Rawal, Raghuvir Yadav, Tisca Chopra Review by: Usman Khawaja  **++Review:++** The opening montage reveals the theme in grandiose horror, where dilapidated corporation lorries are dumping mounds of butchered corpses in a Muslim cemetery in the spring of 2002 in Gujarat, as the two fatigued grave diggers bury them in mass graves, one spots a female corpse with a Hindu icon and starts to hit her in a spontaneous rage while the other tries to restrain his visceral rage on an already dead human being. Nandita Das has populated her inherently complex theme of religious strife and genocide in overt and subtle overtures where her ambiguous characters mingle in a relative time frame torn with strife.  She observes this nightmare from the eyes of a seven year old orphaned Muslim boy who awaits the incipient return of his beloved father butchered in the carnage. The boy is both a mascot of hope and a bitter reminder of the fragile bond that binds the two nations in the same homeland as he observes the atrocities with his vacuous dazed stare which is the hallmark of great cinema as it is neither a sentimental tearjerker or a sermon on morality but an observation of a bleak truth in anticipation…