Review - Chak De India (Aug 2007)

What can I say but Chak De!

I saw a movie tonight about the Indian women’s hockey team, led by a disgraced Muslim coach, whose combined internal struggles were finally resolved with their struggle with and eventual triumph over the rest of the world. The theater was quite empty, as I expected, but what happened after the lights went out was more than I had hoped for. I can safely say this was the best movie I’ve seen in a very long time – one for the history books for my gender. At the very least, I have never had such a visceral reaction to a movie. I still haven’t stopped smiling.

Chak De India is about a Muslim men’s hockey player who gets accused of failing to win the World Championships and for doing this for Pakistan –another issue that is so rarely brought up in India. Shahrukh Khan, the lead star, has had to play some sort of Hindu, some combination of Raj/Rahul for most of his career. Hats off to him for attempting something so out of his element. In his attempt to win back his country and his respect he trains an Indian women’s hockey team - the “graveyard” as his friend calls it – and brings them heretofore unfound glory. In typical sports movie fashion a band of misfits from all over India unite and overcome all odds to beat the Australians in the finals. It was fast paced and professional, and had all the guts and glory you’d expect. It was smart, honest, and humorous. India won against England, Spain, Argentina, and Australia – what a great story for brown people! A fantasy yes, but oh what a beautiful fantasy it was.

But most of all, for me, it was about my gender.

India is on the rise right now in the global economy. Its arrogance and excitement is palpable, perhaps no more so than in its movie industry, particularly to us outsiders. As a Nepali who lives in USA, who has watched hindi movies closely for decades this really feels like a golden age in Indian filmmaking. The stories are getting more risky, more content driven, and more innovative. However, for years I have complained about the lack of movies with strong female role models – about how even after years of innovations in every other direction their discourse on women has been sadly stereotypical and unable to rise out of mediocrity. Fair enough, my fellow wannabe critics would say, show us a less sexist Hollywood if you can. And I agreed for the most part. Western women have been similarly relegated to the background and used primarily for their beauty but there is a difference in their way of being – a self assurance one only got a glimpse of in these Indian movies I so adored. But things have changed in the past few years, and to me Chak De India proves a glorious, wonderous example of this – it is something the Western world hasn’t yet accomplished with such mainstream glory. A movie about strong women whose strength, skill, intelligence, courage, and pride are far more central to their existence than their sex appeal.

Our male coach was such a blessing. So unassuming, so not sexist – he treated his players like players, trained them hard, and taught them to rise above societal expectations. It was refreshing to see Shahrukh Khan in what is possibly the best movie he has ever made. I forgive him for all the hamming down the years, all the sexist movies he has been part of that have been made by the Chopra and Johar and other camps. While this movie is probably going to fail at the box office, I am glad that it got their backing and his star power to give it a grand polished look, much unlike the status of women’s sports worldwide.

This is one movie I will treasure for years to come and show my kids, when I have them, and whoever arrives at my doorstep.

To pick just one scene - When two Northeast Indian girls were being teased by a couple of boys and the whole Indian women’s team took them apart, it was one of those amazing moments that truly took hold of me and it’s hard for me to articulate how I felt then. To have had to wait this long to see something like that – I had tears in my eyes and my heart was beating out of control. I was hooting and clapping in the theater like mad (slight exaggeration). How many times have women throughout the subcontinent wanted to tear apart the men who carelessly tease them, expect them to conform and hide their faces, ridicule their independence, bring them down every opportunity they get, and expect women to just take it in – no questions asked? For once, I felt like I was watching a movie that was truly talking to me, that was made for me – an independent woman who has yearned for so many years to be treated with respect, to be seen for the spirit and intellect I possessed before anything else.

It was time my gender got some respect and I am glad it was done by Indians – who as they rise probably are also pushing for a social message that is pro- strong, no-nonsense women in a notoriously female unfriendly society. While feminism seems to be dead in the West, what with the rise of “slut feminism”, hopefully this movie signals that it is on the rise in India.

If this is the case, I am psyched for the rise of India. Even if I am from Nepal. :)