Grasping sense and sensibility that was typical of the ’70s, Deewar turns 50 with a quiet distinction. It’s hero is a young man, apparently not much different from a teeming population of other jobless youth of the period takes to crime and after having made success his second name, dies disenchanted in his mother’s arm.
Essaying the role of Vijay, Amitabh Bachchan cemented his image of an angry young man in Deewar. He had donned this image in Zanjeer and it was to become synonymous with him in the coming decades.
A remarkable film by any chalk of imagination, Deewar is not greeted with the enthusiasm it deserves though it ran on time full houses wherever it was screened. The fact remains it’s 50 years coincides with the same timespan of the release of Sholay which still has the last word in entertainment in Hindi films.
Even a critical look will reveal that Deewar is no pushiver. Shashi Kapoor enacting the role of Ravi, a policeman and Vijay’s brother has endeared himself to successive generations of mothers and sons when he tells his elder sibling “Mere pass Ma hai’.
Here is concrete evidence of the durability of this dialogue. It was on A R Rahman’s lips while accepting the Oscar for his musical score for Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire.
One wonders at the felicity of dialogue writer duo Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. The tug at the heart strings of an average Indian is unmistakable.
If some old timers detect shades of Mother India, so be it. The timing of the dialogue is all the more remarkable asVijay had flaunted his bungalow, cars and balance in the bank before Ravi and trivialised his salary and it’s perquisites as a law enforcer.
Satyajit Ray had once traced melodrama in Indian films to jatras and theatre and driven in the point in his film Nayak(The Hero) which had Uttam Kumar in the character role. Deewar too has its fair share of melodrama.
His metal badge of a dock worker of what was then known as Bombay saving him twice from death readily comes to mind. Inscripted with 786, it acquires the status of a talisman whose loss follows Vijay’s death..
But melodrama is present in an appropriate measure. A moral conundrum lifts Deewar out of its melodramatic gestures.
Tension is palpable throughout the film. Be it Vijay and Ravi’s trade union leader father taking on the mill owner or Vijay coming into a no-holds barred fight in a locked godown with exortionists or an unarmed Ravi clad in his uniform walking into a smugglers den.
Respectability and heroism were the twin ptops on which director Yash Chopra rested Deewar. Both are indispensible to it.
While Ravi receives a medal of merit in his heart of hearts he is mourning Vijay who fell to a bullet fired from his service revolver. Ravi is the conventional hero and Vijay is the vanquishrf one.
Influence of the Dilip Kumar- Vyjayantimala starrer Gunga Jamuna notwithstandung, Deewar grasps at modern sensibility. Unemployment was on the rise and its fallout is portrayed in a job interview where Ravi spurns employment to let a more needy applicant land the job.
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Indira Gandhi would declare Emergency a few month’s after the release of this film. A family friend of the Bachchans, one wonders whether she saw the film before making up her mind to usher in the darkest chapter of Indian democracy till date.
Urban alienation has been portrayed on screen. And a friend of the Prime Minister’s son is in the role of lone crusader who in a top notch smuggler’s guise is set to remove the alienation.
Tge 70s stated to be the decade of liberation; but it could not be achieved. But Deewar displayed what the walls of the then Calcutta proclaimed “Power flowed from the barrel of a gun.’.
Vijay and Ravi are studies in contrast in Deewar. In his hour triumph, Vijay is stoical and takes danger in his stride, oiling his gun while listening to a henchman’s report of the police lookout for him.
In his intimate scenes with Parveen Babi, Vijay is tongue tied. He bares his heart and proposes marriage on learning she is with his child.
Soft emotions appear to be an anathema to Vijay till emotions push him to the edge of a precipe. Ravi, on the other hand, displays the natural instincts of s young man in love when he courts Veera (Neetu Singh,)
But Ravi is only too aware of the emotion he has for Vijay. He is loath to turn against his brother even though he is a law breaker.
Veera reminds Ravi of Krishna’,s words to Arjun on the eve of battle of Kurukshetra. Ravi is quick to point out that he is an ordinary mortal and not Arjun.
The audience identifies with both the brothers throughout the film and even thereafter. Small wonder, director Danny Boylle called Deewar “absolutely key to Indian cinema”.
Deewar differs from Pyasa as chalk is to cheese. Yet it is another post indekennce hope that congealed in smothered disenchantment
The dock worker turned smuggler Vijay remains a family man at heart which breaks when their mother leaves with Ravi, thevelder son’s beautiful home built from his illgotten gains. Yet when the smuggler son breathes hus last it was on his mother’s lap.
The screen family is reduced to a single character. It is the mother.
What happened to Vijay and his family was the story of many lives One could identify with him in his travails and triumphs which gives Deewar an edge over Sholay l giving the. bigger budget film a run for its popularity till date.
Deewar negotiates with its shortcomings and each character has its stances. It could do so as it has space given to it by its modernity and makes it as contemporary as a mobile phone set
