Director Chandraprakash Dwivedi’s film seeks to revive cultural nationalism, but does not serve the purpose of those who want to cut the past for a political harvest.
Director Chandraprakash Dwivedi’s film seeks to revive cultural nationalism, but does not serve the purpose of those who want to cut the past for a political harvest.
For all political surround sound Emperor Prithviraj, the film comes across as a harmless, but dreary period piece that does justice to neither its source nor its subject matter. The Chandraprakash Dwivedi film seeks to revive cultural nationalism, but does not serve the purpose of those who want to cut the past for a political harvest.
Dwivedi refrains from underlining Prithviraj Chauhan’s (Akshay Kumar) fight with Mohammad Ghori (Manav Vij) as a war of civilizations. Instead, the director has focused on the fact that when the personal becomes political, it has far-reaching consequences.
Prithviraj’s soldiers invoke Mahadev over and over again, but there is no religious war with the Mohammad Ghori camp. Mahmud of Ghazni mentions the destruction of the Somnath temple, but Prithviraj quickly separates a person from a religious community. There is a liberal use of the word “dharma”, but both Prithviraj and the treacherous Jaichand offer their views on it.
Despite the well-meaning approach, the big-budget venture fails to provide any real insight into the minds of Prithviraj and Ghori, nor does it succeed in recreating the glorious poetry of war and heroism on the big screen.
The disclaimer states that the film is based on “Prithviraj Raso”, an epic composed by Chand Bardai (Sonu Sood), a bard in Prithviraj’s court. The poem presents an exaggerated account of Prithviraj’s reign and has over the years been more relevant to students of literature as a piece of historical evidence.
Interestingly, Dwivedi’s screenplay is a lesson in the text that inspired him. Therefore, there is no reference to the 22 battles or skirmishes with Mohammad Ghori or to the climactic poem serving as an allusion to Prithviraj. Curiously, Dwivedi spent a lot of time making a case for gender equality in XII, rather than exploring the political motives and maneuvering of Jaichand (Ashutosh Rana). th century, perhaps to offset the sati/johar episode in the story.
For those looking for traces of history in the screenplay, there is no mention of the last Hindu king (the title being used for Prithviraj in the poster) fighting with the Chalukyas in Gujarat and the Chandelas in Bundelkhand.
After a point, Dwivedi, who is known for doing painstaking research, seems to lose the balance between history, legends and the current political narrative. That 12. Keeps invoking Hindustani sentiment in a story set in th century when the country was divided into states for which their self-interest was paramount. Then, in an interesting conversation, Ghori asks his slave-turned-commander Qutbuddin Aibak if the four Indians can stand together; Aibak says only when he has to carry the fifth on his shoulder.
Although Dwivedi’s vision comes through in the costumes and production designs of forts and palaces, the battle scenes are hardly something we haven’t seen before on the battlefields of Bollywood. There is hardly any insight into the strategy and motivations of the Ghurids, other than a line implying that Hindustanis love their motherland so much they have to cheat to win.
Chanakya The director’s pragmatic approach gets in the way of the timeless love story between Prithviraj and Samyukta that has been an important part of the oral history of North India. With a little help from the music department, it fails to grow on you. Debutante Manushi Chhillar isn’t bad, but she doesn’t have the charisma that the role demands.
The tone of Braj, the dialect in which Chand Bardai wrote, is missing in the music, dialogue and pronunciation, and the liberal use of Urdu in dialogue seems disturbing.
Akshay Kumar in the lead role is disappointed. To tone down his body language and Punjabi accent, Kumar has lost a lot of his trademark energy and could not develop the necessary gravity to play the role of the famous ruler. He growls like a lion that has lost its bite and, despite all the air-brushing, doesn’t look like the boy who became emperor in his 20s. The presence of seasoned supporting actors like Rajendra Gupta, Manoj Joshi, Lalit Tiwari and Ashutosh Rana makes their boundaries more clear.
If Akshay is more conscious, Sanjay Dutt, who plays the regent with Prithviraj’s blindfold, remains oblivious to the period and continues to do his own thing, creating a shocking effect in courtroom scenes. In between, Sonu Sood tries his best to say his lines with a straight face as in the ballad and continues to sing for the protagonist. In the beginning, Manav brings to life Ghori’s aura, but as the film progresses, that too gets reduced to an over-dressed cardboard.
No Chand Bardai can save this Prithviraj, he will need political bandmasters to admire its mediocrity for a while.
Samrat Prithviraj is currently running in theaters