Gadar Review Response

Gadar, indeed, seemed to be two movies in one. Additionally, these two movies are interspersed throughout each other in a way that could be confusing to audiences. The extremely graphic introduction does an adequate job of hooking the viewer, but the lack of any signals to aware the audience of the passage of time results in much confusion. It was not until much later in the movie that I was even aware the flashback was referencing the same characters, and that it was a flashback at all.

The two movies, in my opinion, break down into pre-partition & partition (History) and post-partition (Fiction). Each aspect provides an insight into the social situations during those periods. The only thing I'd like to note as a key difference between these two sections of the movie is the difference in the action scenes. As noted, the introductory scenes are very realistic (perhaps to cause more emotional response from viewers) and the latter scenes are very unrealistic and 'cartoony' at some moments. These unrealistic moments, in my opinion, suggest the underlying power that individuals can invoke in the name of love. Additionally, this lack of realism is an accompaniment of the fictional aspect of the second movie. One thing that stood out, though, was that Tara could impose his invincibility onto other objects (Trains, trucks, etc) and force other vehicles to unrealistically and hilariously explode upwards.

During the second half of the film, there's a man living in Pakistan that continues to hail India and the flag, despite his friends informing him otherwise. I believe this man represents those that are happy to be independent from British rule and are confused/unaware why there is a partition at all. I would like to agree that this movie painted the Muslims during post-partition negatively. It seemed as if all key Muslim characters were power-hungry, manipulators who lacked the ability to forgive and forget.

I did not find the film to be too long and I thoroughly enjoyed it.