A quick review of Swatantrya Veer Savarkar– the movie

I had a pleasant experience when I was returning home after watching Swantantrya Veer Savarkar; as I entered the main gate of the building, two elderly gentlemen were sitting on the bench. One gentleman is Mr. Bhatia, easily in his mid-70s, with whom we always exchange pleasantries whenever we come across each other.

“Where are you coming from?” Mr. Bhatia asked.

“I had gone to see the movie on Savarkar,” I said, not sure if he knew the complete name of the movie. “It’s quite a nice movie,” I added.

“Of course, it should be a nice movie,” Mr. Bhatia nodded his head with reverence. “Bade hi balidani aadmi the vo to.”

“He is someone who made great sacrifices for the country.”

Hearing this, I felt so nice. I felt, you cannot suppress goodness. The Congress party, after independence, left no stone unturned to paint Vinayak Savarkar as a great villain, and in recent times, someone who pleads the British for forgiveness.

But the common person recognises his contribution. Not just recognises it, but is also referential towards him. His legacy stays alive.

About the movie.

Initially I was worried that there were very few people in the hall because this is a movie that the maximum number of people must watch. But by the time the movie was over, we discovered that there were 50–60 people, which is quite a lot considering the number of people we normally see in the halls these days. And this was a Wednesday, 3 PM show.

The movie is about Vinayak Savarkar, or Veer Savarkar, as he came to be known as, before a sustained campaign was launched to vilify him.

A problem with the movie in the beginning is that unless you have read a book on Savarkar, it is difficult to understand what is unfolding.

I have read Vikram Sampath’s book on Savarkar, so I knew what was being shown on the screen. My family didn’t. I had to explain it to them. I’m pretty sure the audience sitting in the hall was also confused.

At important moments, they have used extended on-screen text blurbs to explain key background details on context for events. A more breathing room to these textual references could have been provided had they been displayed against a blank screen instead of atop rapidly edited visuals. It is better to isolate text sequences of more than a sentence or two against a static background, allowing the viewer to easily read the contextual information information before moving back into the visual storytelling.

So that you don’t wonder what’s happening when watching the movie: The rapidly portrayed scenes give a harsh reality of Vinayak’s formative years when plague outbreaks were tragically commonplace in the Indian subcontinent. The British colonial authorities often resorted to draconian tactics of containment. The ailing person was forcibly taken away to an unknown location to suffer and likely die in isolation, robbing them of human dignity in the company of their family members in their final moments.

The cruelties didn’t just end there — the entire household, including all possessions inside, would then be burned to the ground as part of scorched-earth decontamination effort. This barbaric approach left whole families devastated, made homeless and penniless by the very administration supposed to help them.

Such measures compelled many families to conceal their sick relatives, watching them die at home in secrecy.

That’s why in the film, the father of the family strictly tells them to stay away from him and not to utter a word to anyone about his ailment.

If you don’t know the background, it’s difficult to understand what is unfolding.

Hence, the first assassination, or the assassination attempt, in the movie, is on the British officer who practiced barbaric methods during the plague outbreak, by the famous Chapekar brothers.

For Savarkar, the young revolutionary-in-the-making, the Chapekars’ act of violent retaliation clearly serves as a radicalising inspiration. Their violent retribution against the cruelties of colonial rule plants the philosophical seeds that later blossom into Savarkar’s own revolutionary thinking.

This catalytic moment should have been captured with greater clarity because it sets the tone for the resistance narrative to come. It is not just a random act of violence.

Then the movie quickly goes through the period when he started Mitra Mela and Abhinav Bharat, the secret organizations, mostly consisting of teenagers, to fight against the British. These scenes needed some more elaboration. There is no buildup. It is as if you are quickly skimming through a very important part of the story.

While the filmmakers clearly had an expansive, multi-decade revolutionary life to condense into a singular cinematic work, the truncated treatment of the early years leads to an inadequate narrative transitioning, which is very important for such an ambitious biographical project. Such a transitioning is important to establish an emotional connection with the audience where you’re trying to establish a new, perhaps radical narrative.

Those transitions could have been achieved through simple dialogues.

Fortunately, the movie picks up its pace within 30 minutes and after that, it becomes quite engrossing, especially the part when Savarkar is captured by the British and transported to Kalapani in the Andaman Islands.

The film successfully, graphically, chronicles the prolonged tortures and degradations, both physical and psychological, he endured over a decade. I don’t remember any movie showing one of its protagonists confined to solitary confinement and then within that room, vomiting and defecating, without any water to wash.

In the book Sampath writes that the room used to become so ridden with vomit and shit that after a while there was no place to lie and sleep.

Randeep Hooda delivers a stellar performance in his portrayal of Savarkar, immersing himself completely in the character’s persona. His dedication is evident notably in his physical transformation, shedding significant weight to authentically depict the years spent in Kalapani.

He is a good actor. Before this movie, I have seen him only in the Hollywood movie Extraction, in which his role is as weighty as Chris Hemsworth’s.

Swantatrya Veer Savarkar is Randeep Hooda’s directorial debut, and he has done quite a good job. While the film initially grapples with storytelling and related issues, Hooda gradually finds his footing and carries the weight of the movie with confidence. Despite a rocky start, the film evolves into a quality production.

Though the first 20–30 minutes may test your patience, perseverance pays off as his directorial progress becomes increasingly evident. By the film’s end, it’s hard to believe it’s the work of an actor-turned-director rather than a seasoned director.

There is another back story that another director was doing the work before Hooda took over. So maybe the initial part of the film was directed by the director.

I feel Gandhi’s comically scheming portrayal takes the attention away from the plot at some points. There was no need to show him as a cloyingly scheming person. His ideological confusions could have been portrayed while showing him just like any other character of the movie.

Vikram Sampath’s book presents the story from Savarkar’s perspective without exaggerating his influence over portraying him as a larger-than-life figure shaping the entire freedom movement. However, in the film, Hooda succumbs to the temptation of depicting Savarkar as the mastermind behind the entire liberation struggle, even suggesting his influence on prominent figures like Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose.

In the end he (or whoever is the script writer here) he tries to give another angle on how India got her freedom — he hints that India’s freedom was not secured through Gandhian nonviolence, but rather by the looming threat of an armed military revolt against British colonial rule. The film suggests that the British hastily exited the country not due to peaceful civil disobedience, but from a strategic fear of an escalating mutiny within the ranks of India’s Army, Navy, and Air Force — a 20th century version of the 1857 uprising, potentially even more devastating this time around.

This slightly provocative counter-thesis about the mechanics of the British exit may upset leftist historians. Whether you agree with this aspect of freedom struggle or not, it certainly triggers a bold revaluation of the conventional wisdom on how India got her independence.

Besides, since he is the storyteller, he gets to present his version. As the “eminent” historian Romila Thapar once said, history is all about interpretation. Different people interpret history differently.

The only appearance of Nehru is when he is briefly shown to light Lady Mountbatten’s cigarette in an almost comically diminutive posture.

Fun fact: remember that ad where a South Indian character catches fish with Favikwik? He has played Gandhi in this film.

Cinematography is good. The camera angles are much better than the contemporary run-of-the-mill films. Some more money could have made a difference. Even with a limited budget, they have delivered a quality film.

It’s a pity that the film is not enjoying as much traction among the Right as some of Vivek Agnihotri’s films, although in terms of quality, Swantatrya Veer Savarkar is much better.

There is still time. Go watch it.