Every biopic, whether made in India or abroad, is an interpretation seen through the vision of a filmmaker handling their subject. Kangana Ranaut's Emergency is one too. Can any filmmaker claim that the biopic they have made is 100% accurate? The same can be said of Emergency. Of course, we are aware of the various dark, life-altering events that occurred during her stint as Prime Minister. But can any filmmaker say for certain that every specific thought or vulnerable moment depicted on screen is a true representation?
Take the scene where a guilt-ridden Indira Gandhi looks at a mirror and sees a hideous creature with her likeness straight out of a horror film. Or what about her strained relationship with her father or her husband? Did every situation and dialogue play out the same way in real life? In Emergency, we find Indira Gandhi looking vulnerable in multiple places. But Kangana also plays her as a resilient figure. As she tells a character in one scene: "I've been defeated, not broken." This interpretation of Indira Gandhi's life shows her conveying exactly that.
Kangana delivers a mostly competent performance that makes you reflect on the immense pressure that someone of Indira Gandhi's stature must've experienced. The actor's voice is eerily similar to that of the controversial figure; however, there are times when the performance borders on the comical, like when she calls President Richard Nixon and shows him that she is not one to be underestimated. These scenes feel like something straight out of a South Indian masala movie. The 'masala' quality shows up jarringly in some other places, too, like when Indira Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Shreyas Talpade), Jayaprakash Narayan (Anupam Kher) and even Sam Manekshaw (Milind Soman) break into a patriotic song routine. In another "old-school Bollywood" moment, George Fernandes joins fellow prisoners in a song while being tortured. Thankfully, these moments are few and far between.
What the filmmaker's intention with this film is, when placed in the context of her real-life image and her work as an actor and, of course, a filmmaker, is up for debate. If you expected to see a biopic that's critical — and rightly so — of some of Indira Gandhi's decisions and the 'darkest chapter' in Indian history, you'll find it here. If you expect to see a biopic that treats its subject as a human being, you'll find that as well.
Emergency is a straightforward, textbook biopic which, thankfully, doesn't adopt the oft-repeated, cradle-to-grave template of chronicling its subject. Despite the film's title, it doesn't stick to the events of this chapter alone. It's more interested in the human being that is Indira Gandhi — or, as I said earlier, the 'interpretation' of her. Kangana opts for a more character-centric approach, showing us a woman deeply hurt by the refusal of her father and, later, her husband to acknowledge her efforts to not only grow as a woman but also her efforts to please them. A woman who tries to make up for that lack of validation through her spoilt brat of a son, Sanjay Gandhi (Vishak Nair), from whom she gets the support and encouragement she so badly wanted from her father and husband. A woman who has to prove that she is not a "dumb little girl" as seen by some of her contemporaries.
This means that to make more time for its subject, it has to adopt a Powerpoint presentation style rush-through of key events such as the Indo-Pakistani war, the Emergency, press censorship, and curtailing the freedom of expression of any artist who opposed the Indira Gandhi-led government, and so on. I would've liked to see the film devoting more time to those severely affected by the decisions of Indira and Sanjay Gandhi. I mean, if you're going to show a flawed, guilt-ridden individual, wouldn't it have been prudent to give us a deeper sense of the suffering endured by the common man? Perhaps a web series approach would've worked better for this subject.
Kangana's filmmaking is fairly solid from a technical standpoint when compared to some of the recent films based on real-life Indian political figures. With the able hands of her Japanese director of photography, Tetsuo Nagata, she steers a film that feels fairly epic in scope and moves along briskly despite a two-hour-plus time, even if it doesn't attempt anything groundbreaking.
Film: Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Vishak Nair
Rating: 3/5
