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It's an eye opener - a history lesson, a love story and a riveting drama.

In Lahore in 1947, Gandhi had the British finally pulling out of India. When the Brits pulled away they left a power vacuum, which saw the Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs clamouring for their own independence. People who had worked side by side in peace to rid themselves of the British were suddenly beating, raping, and butchering each other in a rush to grab power. Only a small minority, the Parsees, remained neutral.

But this is no historical documentary. The film starts as a family story of friendship and love, which is intriguing enough itself. The political side is only visited via the increasingly strained conversations of these non-political characters and remains, until the end, an unseen enemy. Essentially the story is of a young Parsee girl who watches as her multi-racial mix of friends and family are torn apart, literally on one occasion, by the events around them.

The fact that India makes more feature films each year than Hollywood is probably why they seem to be creating so many good directors and Canadian resident Mehta would seem to be every bit as talented as acclaimed Elizabeth director Shekhar Kapur.

Like Elizabeth, this film is seldom what you expect, but very much worth seeing. ---Chris Parry

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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=2214&reviewer=14
originally posted: 09/13/99 01:04:43
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