Shoojit Sircar’s masterfully crafted historical biopic stars Vicky Kaushal as the titular Indian revolutionary who assassinates the Irish officer responsible for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. The film’s non-linear narrative reframes the hero’s passion for revenge as a slow-burning and patient desire for justice. It’s anything but aspirational and glorified; it’s anything but black and white.
His journey is plain, pensive, bleak, almost mundane — it takes more than a decade in the wilderness to not just plot the murder, but also process the fact that his patriotism is perhaps a ready ruse for the personal pain and grief of witnessing the massacre as a young man. It’s the sort of journey where passion becomes more of an intangible and morally ambivalent entity. It isn’t visible, like a ghost in a horror film that evolves with time and normalises a sense of dread.
