1942 A Love Story - Love or Patriotism? Or Both? (1942 A Love Story (DVD))

Member Name: anonymili

Product:	1942 A Love Story (DVD)
Date:	02/10/09 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good acting, fabulous songs

Disadvantages: Story a bit far-fetched in places

1942 A Love Story is a Hindi language film aka Bollywood film and as its title depicts it is set in 1942. This was a time of a lot of freedom fighting taking place in India against the British who had been in rule for quite some time.


Naren is the rather spoilt son of the rich Diwan Hari Singh who is famous for sucking up to the British who are ruling over India. Naren doesn't seem to do much with his life aside from ride horses and gallivant around being self-indulgent. That is, until he meets Rajeshwari, or Rajjo, as he calls her. It's love at first sight for him and she very soon returns his feelings. Unknown to Naren Rajjo's father Raghuvir is a freedom fighter who's been building bombs to kill General Douglas who's a bit of a tyrant to say the least. Naren's dad finds out his son wants to marry the daughter of a freedom fighter and reports Raghuvir to the authorities and he dies in a police encounter blowing up the building with the explosives and those who came to capture him in the process. Rajjo now assuming that Naren betrayed them in the process with Naren thinking she died in the explosion. Rajjo actually goes on the run with Shubhankar, another freedom fighter, who vows to carry on with her father's plan to blow up General Douglas.

Do the freedom fighters manage to carry out their radical plan with no explosives and no guns? Does Naren ever find his true love again?


1942 A Love Story (I'll call it 1942 for short) is a romantic drama starring Anil Kapoor as Naren, Manisha Koirala as Rajeshwari (Rajjo), Jackie Shroff as Shubhankar, Anupam Kher as Raghuvir, Danny Denzongpa as Major Hisht, Brian Glover as General Douglas, Manohar Singh as Diwan Hari Singh, Chandni as Chanda and Pran as Abidali Baig.

Anil Kapoor played his role really well in this role. I've always liked him as an actor. For the uninitiated he plays the quite unpleasant quiz host in Slumdog Millionaire. We see his character at the start of the film in the back of the car with his driver talking away and him not paying much attention as he's reading a magazine. He seems very indulgent and shallow. He wears smart trousers, shirt, waist coat and cravats and is deemed a typical son of an aristocrat with no purpose in life. He adores his mother and vice versa but doesn't seem too close to his father but doesn't really cause any waves. Until, that is, he meets the beautiful Rajeshwari - when it's love at first sight for him. Prior to meeting her he doesn't seem to notice any of the violence going on around him and how the freedom fighters are being shot on sight or tortured mercilessly for information. His father is well in with the British and until he meets his "Rajjo" he is oblivious to the fact that his father is deemed as a traitor to his fellow countrymen.

Naren is playing the lead role in a local production of Romeo and Juliet which unbeknownst to him is a front for the freedom fighters. Rajjo joins in with the play and Naren's attention is deterred from Chanda; his leading lady in the play, who is quite obviously in love with him but not involved with the freedom fighting. She also happens to be the daughter of Major Hisht who, although not as bad as Naren's father, is dedicated to his job as an army official. The Major dotes on his daughter and feels a degree of guilt when she asks him if he thinks it's ok to shoot and kill unarmed men just because he's "doing his duty". Danny Denzongpa is very good at playing villainous roles but in 1942 he plays the role of a dedicated army official and loving father to perfection. The role was just right for him. You can understand where he's coming from and feel some degree of empathy towards the decisions his character makes in the line of duty.

Naren's father, on the other hand, is a despicable character and there are absolutely no redeeming qualities about him - he's just a puppet to the British wanting to gain a higher title; and his treachery extends to reporting on his son's girlfriend's father, thereby ensuring his death and even snitching on his own son to General Douglas. Manohar Singh played the role ably enough but he wasn't really impressive enough as a bad guy.

Talking about General Douglas played by Brian Glover... What a comical character he was! He's supposed to be this really awful tyrant but he made me chuckle somewhat. He had some truly dire lines in the film and seemed to be grinning through a lot of them and I honestly think they dubbed his voice because he sounded really weird. His lines throughout the film were very brief and included:

* "Kill them"
* "Hang them"
* "Shoot them" and the best (or worst)
* "Ugh Indian blood on me, now I have to shower"

Brian Glover was a British actor (he passed away in 1997) - I don't know how he ended up with this bizarre part in 1942 without him being allowed to have any sensible speaking lines. One would think any British actor worth his salt would refuse to play such an awful role. The story for 1942 is fictional but it's supposed to reflect some real life events in India at around that time, namely India's fight for independence from the British which was eventually achieved in 1947.

I do think the scriptwriter took huge liberties with the overall story. I might be Indian by origin but I'm pretty sure the British did not behave with Indians in the manner that was portrayed in the film. It made the British out to be uncouth savages which was just not the case generally (and I've spoken with my elderly relatives in India who can remember the days when the British were still in power about this film and they all said the story was really quite silly portraying the British in this manner). I imagine there might have been SOME atrocities during the British rule of India but everything in the film was just so hugely exaggerated and the only British character shown was just so comical and over the top in many respects that it did the film quite a disservice.

There's a nice love story in the film which is somewhat overshadowed by the flaws in the freedom fighting side of the story. The film depicts the journey of a self-indulgent young man who finds his path and grows to be a dependable and patriotic but one can't ignore the plot-holes. A bit deal was made of the fact that Rajjo's father died in an explosion which took out all those who came to apprehend him and this explosion meant there were no explosives left for the freedom fighters and no guns of any kind. Now how difficult would it be to get hold of more explosives and more guns in any period of time if you're dedicated freedom fighters? If Naren's father already reported him to the authorities for having a relationship with the daughter of a revolutionary, why were more tabs not kept on his afterwards to see if he was still involved with them?

Despite some of the issues I've mentioned about the plot there were some really nice scenes in the film which were quite heart-warming, especially the scenes between Naren and Rajjo. There was a really touching scene when Rajjo realises that Naren didn't betray her father and another one where their eyes meet across a crowded square which really showed how well Manisha Koirala is at facial expressions. She really gave a lot of herself in this film and it's probably one of her best roles although sadly she didn't win any awards for the role. From what I understand Manisha went on a diet to look extra slender for this role just so she could look more dainty and appealing as a fragile young woman.

Jackie Shroff is always good as far as I'm concerned, he won the Filmfare Award for Best Support Actor for his role in 1942 and apart from his final scenes in the film I thought the award was well deserved. His character also happens to be in love with Rajjo and it's quite sad in a way that she has no feelings of that sort for him but he is very gallant. The climax of the film had him doing a bit of over-acting which made me chuckle despite the seriousness of it all!

One thing I have to sincerely admit about 1942 is that it had a fabulous soundtrack. One of my favourite Bollywood songs is from this film "Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To" which means "I saw this girl and" basically it's about a guy setting eyes on a girl and falling for her hook, line and sinker. The song is by Kumar Sanu and it's a beautiful melody which I've adored since the first time I heard it. Another song which is beautiful is "Kuch Na Kaho" which means "Say nothing" and has several different versions in the films sung by Lata Magneshkar and Kumar Sana. The lyrics for all of the film's songs are by Javed Akhtar and the music director was R D Burman. The film won Best Lyricist for Akhtar, Best Music Director for Burman, Best Male Playback Singer for Sanu and Best Female Playback Singer for Kavita Krishnamurthy (for the song Pyaar Hua Chupke Se which is a pretty lullaby).


I purchased my DVD of 1942 from erosentertainment.com for about £2 and it had no extras to be honest aside from choice of subtitles (erm a choice of either English subtitles or none) and scene and song selection. For that price I guess they wouldn't really be offering much in the way of extras. But be warned if you do get DVD from this site, you're liable to have to sit through a whole heap of trailers for other films which you can't even fast forward for some strange reason!


I have seen this film several times over the years and would be happy to watch it again. Despite some of its flaws, the film has beautiful cinematography, pretty good acting and a fabulous soundtrack. All in all, I'd be happy to give 1942 A Love Story a solid 4 out of 5 stars.


TECHNICAL

Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Screenplay: Sanjay Leela Bhansari
Release date: December 1993
Duration: 160 minutes
Cinematography: Binod Pradhan

Summary: Makes the Brits look really bad!!!