Direction:
Krishna Vamsi
Cast:
Nana Patekar, Karishma Kapoor,
Sanjay Kapoor, Shah Rukh Khan
The
Film: When a woman decides to
make a film, she would prefer a
story that projects her gender problems
vis-a-vis the society. Under her
own banner, Sridevi presents Shakti
the power, on a story that serves
her aims, written by south's Krishna
Vamsi, who makes a debut in Bollywood
with this film.
The
film has a few surprises: return
of Nana Patekar in a powerful villainous
role, Shah Rukh Khan doing a character
and, to top them all, Karishma as
the main protagonist. Together they
take us to a feudal Rajasthan, a
society which is unlikely today
and if it still exists, then it
certainly does not make us proud.
Krishna
Vamsi has carved up Karishma in
a very sharp character with powerful
contours. In fact, all the main
characters make a distinct impact
on the developing story as they
grow along with the happening. In
Nandini's role, she starts off as
a smart innocent, NRI girl living
in Canada. That's where she becomes
friendly with a scion of a backwardly
feudal clan somewhere in remote
Rajasthan, India.
It
transpires that eight years before
they met, this youth, played by
Sanjay Kapoor, fled his home disgusted
as he was with the savage, sadistic
society where he had grown up. His
sister's husband had been murdered
by a rival family and his father
Narasimha and grandfather kept talking
of avenging him. He just could not
stand the violence-ridden atmosphere
any more and ran away
The
good friends married and became
the happy parents of a son. Things
suddenly erupted in their contented
life, when he got a phone call from
home, informing him of mother's
serious illness. He wanted to rush
back home without Nandini and the
child, but she insisted on accompanying
him and he agreed. And that it seems
was a blunder. But that blunder,
natural it appears, was the tip
of the exposive iceberg that awaited
them in Rajasthan.
Nandini
has a foretaste of it the moment
they land in India. Ambushed by
a mad mob of lathi and sword-wielding
men, they run for their lives and
are finally rescued by an equally
violent gang from home. A suspenseful,
tense welcome by father Narasimha
(Nana Patekar) makes an interesting
scene, but is the first encounter
with unsuspected trouble.
Krishna
Vamsi here attempts to depict a
'clash of civilisations' , so to
say. But it is only half realistic.
A more intelligent thing would have
been to show the couple fleeing
the US (by shifting the foreign
location from Canada to New York
or Washington or a nearby suburb)
after the disaster of September
11. That would have been a more
realistically balanced story, the
depiction of which would have established
that violence is a universal phenomenon,
its nature, time and place may differ.
Shakti
is, therefore, a distortion of the
Indian scene and a misrepresentation
of our society, though it may serve
the purpose of projecting Karishma
Kapoor as a great actress. She is
not to be blamed. She does her best
to react to a given situation. From
a peaceful and prosperous Canadian
scene she is transposed to a group
of people with a sadistic mindset
living in a world of their own,
a world that moves according to
the law laid down by them and is
unaware or unexposed to the social
norms beyond its confines.
To
her utter shock, she is face-to-face
with a world she could not have
seen even in her worst nightmares.
She succumbs to it for a while,
but could not accept it, because
she is a mother and wants her dear
son rescued from what she considers
a kind of living hell. The rest
is the saga of her fierce fight
against a band of devilish men and
servile, tongueless women.
To
the suppressed womenfolk she appears
as an unbelievable figure of divine
courage which ultimately shakes
them out of their mental bondage.
It is on this note of self-liberation
of women that the film ends.
-by
Our Film Critic
September 27, 2002
