Gurinder Chadha, whose Viceroy’s House released last week, said that mothers very rarely get to make big historical films.
“With my family originally from pre-Partition India, my view is very distinct and my view as director is very distinct and my position on the subject is uniquely my own position. It’s a very personal view — it’s British, Indian, Punjabi, but it’s also as a woman and mother. It’s not often that mothers get to make films per se and then mothers very rarely get to make big historical epics,” she said.
At an event organised by The Indian Express, Chadha said that her film is very personal for her and that people who survived the partition did not talk about it as it was too traumatic for them.
“What was interesting about making this film and travelling with it across the world was that so many people did not even know Partition ever happened. This was shocking. Even in Britain, the British audience were like, ‘This happened? We just thought we left nicely’. In Australia and New Zealand too, people had no idea. Even our younger generation had no idea. Now part of this, I think, is because it is such a traumatic subject people do not want to talk about it.
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Suddenly that generation who was a part of it does not want to talk about it because of the terrible things they saw. And then their children do not want to talk about it because that trauma is still there. So I think that probably the third, fourth, fifth generation will want to talk about it.”
Gurinder Chadha’s film is a British-Indian historical drama starring Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi, and Michael Gambon. The film gives audience a peek inside the life of the Viceroy in 1947 during the Partition of India. The film’s music is by Oscar winner AR Rahman and even has late actor Om Puri in a minor role.
Feature Image: BBC