There is a scene in the film where Begum Jaan and her bunch of women sit around a radio as it plays out Pandit Nehru's historic speech about India's tryst with destiny. It's in English and these women sitting on their haunches hearing it can't make heads or tails of it, until someone announces "mil gayi aazaadi" and they explode into an impromptu song and dance.
Begum Jaan while smoking her hookah looks over the joyous proceedings with bemusement. Azaadi is an alien concept to her – "Azaadi bas mardon ki hoti hai”.
At another crucial point in the film we hear one of the women explain through her tears why the kotha is more important to her than anything else. It gave her more freedom than she could ever hope for even in her own home.
It is in these little moments that the film Begum Jaan becomes most poignant.
Unadorned with loud music or when it isn't trying hard for greatness. At other times, it sadly does exactly what it set out to correct in the first place – it glosses over individual pain and suffering in its recounting of history, trying hard to reach a high note in pitch and plot.
As the Radcliffe line was drawn on a map diving India into two parts, it translated into a tragedy of mammoth proportions. Millions affected by a divide that ruthlessly cut through their lives and livelihood, hearts and homes.
Based on Director Srijith Mukherji’s own Bengali film Rajkahani, Begum Jaan tries to evoke the same authentic sense of displacement that Partition brings along. Begum Jaan’s kotha falls in the middle of the line all set to divide the country into two and so she must leave and choose a side.
As Rajit Kapoor and Ashish Vidyarthi who represent the two warring sides come to Begum Jaan with the eviction orders, it becomes clear that the film for its part, is preparing itself for another partition or what we call in cinematic terms "interval".
Neatly divided into two halves, the the first part introduces us to the women of this brothel – their idyllic kotha – where cast creed or religion do not divide them.
But it is the common thread of unmitigated pain and instances of Begum Jaan’s generosity that is the binding force.
How this rebellion will end, is a foregone conclusion. The second half makes it into a bloody war zone, with the "secular" whorehouse protecting its "sovereignty" as a metaphor for the huge canvas of aching grief and pain that the divide brought in its wake.
Vidya Balan's Begum Jaan is riveting. Using Kausar Munir's dialogues, of which the most hard-hitting ones have been reserved for Vidya, she manages to carve out a unique identity of her own. She plays the feisty Begum Jaan expertly with the ferociousness that such a powerful character needed without letting clichés take over.
As for the rest, Gauhar Khan and Pallavi Sharda each have their time under the spotlight, but the characters are so unidimensional that despite some scenes which are bound to leave us teary-eyed, we can never truly connect to their predicament.
Chunky Pandey as the sinister Kabir is hugely effective too. But the organic flow of the narrative is constantly hampered as the film tries just a little too hard to achieve greatness.
What it lacks are moments of tenderness and quiet so as to be able to establish the enormity of the situation. Instead, we have obtrusive music and melodrama that in its hurry to make a grand statement is so infested with symbolism that it ends up becoming schematic and algorithmic.
It frankly tries too hard and that alone becomes its undoing. 2.5 quints out of 5. For Vidya Balan's sake, it does warrant a watch.
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