Dir.
Ketan Mehta, India/UK, 2005, 150 mins, subtitles
Cast:
Aamir Khan, Toby Stephens, Amisha Patel, Rani Mulerji
The Rising deals with what has always been called in British history books "The Indian Mutiny" and is termed by the people of the Indian subcontinent as the "First War of Indian Independence".
It is set in the 1850s, when the administration of India was sub contracted out as it were by the British Government to the East India Company, whose object was to make as much money as possible out of the country for its shareholders. An early example of privatisation. Mangel Pandey (Aamir Khan), a soldier in an Indian sepoy regiment serving under Englishman William Gordon (Toby Stephens) saves the life of his commander during the Afghan wars and despite their differences of rank, race and culture the two men become good friends. That friendship is sorely tested, when new gun cartridges are introduced, which require the soldiers to bite through the casing, and rumours start to circulate that the cartridges are greased with pork and beef fat, forbidden substances under the religion of the Muslim and Hindu soldiers. Assured by his superiors that the rumours are untrue, Gordon gives Pandey his word that the cartridges are free from pollution and Pandey becomes one of the first to "bite the bullet". But when Pandey discovers that the East India Company has lied and are in fact ignoring religious beliefs in favour of cheap weapons, he becomes a leader in the revolt against the British, which is ultimately brutally put down, and he becomes a hero and a martyr.
Although it took more than ninety years before India finally gained independence, what the First Indian Mutiny did achieve was the destruction of the infamous East Indian Company, with rule of India reverting to the British Crown.
We've seen in other movies and teleplays, such as Gandhi, A Passage to India and The Jewel and the Crown, some of the injustices perpetrated by the British in India , when it was part of the British Empire . The Rising is particularly clear in communicating the Indian viewpoint in the context of a well told and illuminating story, which makes a timely contribution to our understanding of Islamic and Hindu culture. Much of it is seen through Gordon's eyes, a man who is a loyal soldier but ashamed of the way some of his fellow officers behave towards "the natives" and who takes as his mistress a young widow (Amisha Patel), whom he and Pandey have rescued from being burned alive on the funeral pyre of her late husband. Love interest for Pandey comes in the form of Rani Mulerji, as a woman forced into prostitution to serve the recreational interests of the British soldiers. Director Mehta uses the colourful Bollywood tradition of song and dance in a way which furthers and illuminates the story in a dramatic way and, while it certainly doesn't shirk showing the arrogant and insensitive attitude of the British rulers and businessmen - there is one particularly powerful sequence where the sepoy regiment is ordered to fire on their own countrymen - it is not unsympathetic to those Britons, who were trying to do their best under difficult circumstances. Stephens is good as the conflicted Gordon and Khan, one of India 's leading actors, previously seen here as the Ice Candy Man, who betrays his beloved, in Deepa Mehta's Earth , is charismatic as Pandey. The film is in English and Hindustani with sub titles, making it accessible to both Asian and non Asian audiences.
Carol Allen
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