Raakh : A Movie Made Well Ahead Of Its Time

                        The word "Raakh" means ashes. It was way back in the late eighties and the early nineties that an Indian Hindi movie was made by the name "Raakh". A look back at this very unusual and yet very formidable movie forms the topic for today.
                                                                                          Aditya Bhattacharya, the director of Raakh is the son of legendary filmmaker Basu Bhattacharya. People familiar with Indian Cinema knows the contribution of Bhattacharya senior. He stewarded projects like Teesri Kasam, Anubhav, Avishkar, Griha Pravesh among others. Aditya cast a newcomer for the role of the protagonist. The actor had just made one film and that film had been a blockbuster. The name of the actor was Aamir Khan and the blockbuster was none other than Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak.

The plot goes something like this :

Aamir meets up with friends after a long time. In that party he meets Nita, a girl whom he loves but somehow things have not been turning out well. Aamir and Nita leave the party together and in the middle of the way, Nita is harassed by a band of hooligans. Aamir is devastated and he thinks he is the one responsible for the incident. He decides to take revenge. He collaborates with a police inspector named Kapoor and takes the necessary training. The dreaded gang has been a long time enemy of the police inspector. Aaamir and the inspector join hands. After all, an enemy of an enemy becomes a natural friend. Terrifying violence follows, every bit of the world around Aamir starts to fall apart. From an indecisive, tepid, innocent boy he turns ugly. He turns remorseless as he goes on a killing spree. He does not know what can befall him, which laws he is breaking, which ones he is misusing - he simply does not care. He has only one aim - to avenge the criminals that committed atrocities on Nita. Kapoor is as relentless as Aamir, he teaches the boy how to win. He teaches Aamir how to become an animal on a savage hunt. In the end, all destruction completes but Nita never returns. She settles in "her" own life leaving Aamir alone who has now become a serial killer. The audience is asked the final question : What was the need for this violence? Doesn't every violence give no result than heaps of ashes?

                           Celebrating darkness is not easy. As the legendary Indian author Munshi Premchand once wrote - putting a different color on top of a black cloth is nothing but a futile exercise. The black cloth will do nothing but absorb all other colors and the result will still be black. Heinous crime begets crime and darkness continues - all throughout this movie. The life of Aamir is drenched in darkness, he cannot find peace in anything. He was indecisive in his early life; he becomes inhuman with time.

                           Dialogues are rarity in this movie, there is no flash about dialogues. Some scenes are only filled with facial expressions. The scene where Aamir breaks down after committing his first murder and gets support and help from Kapoor to overcome his emotions is awe-inspiring. The scene where Kapoor fights with his enemies over a drink is water-tight in terms of drama. There is enough of it, and just enough of it.

                          Acting is reacting - the saying is universal. If so, both Aamir Khan and Pankaj Kapoor walks an extra mile or two to prove it right. Their mutual scenes are works of art. If cinema is a pure medium to explain edited reality, the movie is a glorious example of it. Every grudge, every eye contact, every spasms of anger, every little agony, every single disgust is handled with supreme care, by all the actors.

                          The music of this work of fiction is damaging and disturbing. Be it the different chase scenes, or the soft emotional scenes between Aamir and Nita, or the training scenes of Aamir - the background music scores very high, whenever it happens.

                           The camera, the treatment and the direction are all unsympathetic to its viewers. It is as if we are reading a short story of Sherlock Holmes and thereby hit by an unleashing flame of artistry and that particular type of artistry has little sympathy to the readers, for, the subject is thrilling.

                            Several years have passed since the release of the movie. Aamir Khan is now one of the superstars of Indian Cinema. Pankaj Kapoor, Supriya Pathak are stalwarts in their own ways. Aditya, the filmmaker is still doing cinema in another foreign country. So all is really well. But, there is still a regret. When the movie was released, it went rather unnoticed. As they say - like father, like son. The two filmmakers had to have similar beginnings - from Teesri Kasam to Raakh, their movies fetched awards of their time but not the attention of their time. Maybe they were well ahead of their time?

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