Deewar is the dramatized epic detailing the narrative of an angry
young man with postcolonial India as the setting. The social discord between the upper classes
and the underprivileged struggling lower classes is so great that it serves as
a driving factor for the climax. Through the social struggles exampled through
familial and internal conflicts, Deewar
is able to depict the crisis of post-colonial nationalism and disenchantment
with the nation. However, the overarching themes are not just displayed in the
setting of the film, but also through the interrelatedness of the family and
the self. Through examining a reappearing symbol, more specifically the tattoo
that Vijay is forced to get as a child, this analysis hopes to introduce the
effect of the physical representation of defeat into a mentality that later
causes the struggles within the family.
As
the village was angry with the father’s actions in settling with the
industrialists instead continuing to fight for the workers’ movement, some
workers force innocent and young Vijay to bear the malicious words that the
village seems to enforce onto him. Mera
baap chor hai (My father is a thief) is the resounding and wounding
statement that stays with young Vijay on his arm through the rest of his life.
It is at this point that his path is already carved in a different way than the
uninjured Ravi. Vijay bore the anger of the village that stayed with permanence
on an unavoidable location on his body, a manifestation of himself. His body is
scarred and wounded in a way that cannot be fixed naturally. As Mazumdar
states, “the scar now becomes a signifier for marginality and social
displacement, soon taking Bachchan outside the pale of his family” (Making
Meaning in Indian Cinema pg. 244). Vijay is left unable to speak as he shows
his mother the tattoo. His face is stoic, which serves as a contrast to the
previously lively face he had around his father. A transformation is already
present. Ravi is otherwise left unharmed, though he is shown to have a fever, a
temporary affection that stops as soon as the scene transitions.
Vijay’s
tattoo serves as a constant reminder of his social marginality seen amongst the
privilege of the upper class that seemingly treats the poor in any way without
sympathy. The inscription of his body, while done by the angry but still lower
class, is a symbol for the free will of the rich and their ability to, in a
way, stamp the poor’s body as if it were cattle, showing little worth. The
outward pain is transformed into an internal and mental pain through examples
of his marginalization. The tattoo starts to gain more meaning and hatred and
oppression than it originally had as his mistreatment continues. It is the reason for him to pursue opulence
with such persistence, though he knows the dishonorable means by which to
achieve it.
Without
his tattoo, he is left without a physical representation for his misbehaviors.
His actions are left disqualified and out of an unimaginable source of anger
rather than as a reaction to oppression. Our ability to sympathize would be
severely limited even though the same scenes with mistreatment would have been
displayed. When confronted by his brother, “Bachchan uses the tattoo to justify
his transition to criminality” and by Parveen Babi, “Bachchan replies that the
tattoo had left deep marks on his body, soul, and hand and no plastic surgery
in the world could remove it” (Making Meaning in Indian Cinema pg. 248).
The
deep and underlying pain that continues throughout the film is outwardly
exposed through familial conflicts, and less obviously displayed within the
self. The tattoo in the narrative serves the integral role of concretizing the oppression
and marginalization. It increases our ability to sympathize. Banerjea states, “the
aesthetic techniques as much as the narrative solutions suggested by [the film]
allow for the sympathetic construction of ‘rogue’ masculinities—the outlaw, the
outsider—at a time when to be an outsider posed considerable political risks” (‘Fight
Club’ pg. 166).
No comments:
Post a Comment