Gunjan Saxena: Add this to your weekend watchlist

In all honesty, I was quite apprehensive about watching this film. I assumed Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl would be another means for the glorification of war and violence. This tends to be the case with most films dealing with war. The pain, suffering, human loss and the devastation of war are often overlooked. However, Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

Don’t get me wrong, the film is not about the devastation of a war. It’s about the battles a woman has to face in this male-dominated society, to achieve her dreams. The film has got to do more with patriarchy than patriotism. The film, like Amazon Prime’s Shakuntala Devi, is set in a grey area between facts and fiction. But unlike Shakuntala Devi, this film is more focused on telling its story.

The story and the conflict are quite clear. It’s about a girl, Gunjan (Janhvi Kapoor), who aspires to be a pilot. Nobody, except her progressive father (Pankaj Tripathi) and her friend, takes her words seriously. The first time she tells her goal to her brother, he ridicules her about it. He says women can only be a stewardess in an aeroplane, never a pilot. Gunjan is highly encouraged by her father. He says, “When the plane doesn’t care who’s flying it, why should you?”

However, it’s all easier said than done. Her dreams are just like the way she looks at aeroplanes flying in the sky. So close, yet so far. And when she learns that she has to spend a fortune to become a pilot, she turns towards the air-force. To make it clear to the viewers, there is a scene where she has doubts about joining the air-force. This is one of the two scenes, which I thought, became too on the nose in trying to convey its message. But these were the only two places I felt that way. However, at the same time, I felt that maybe messaging on the nose is necessary, looking at the present socio-political atmosphere of the country. The other scene is where Gunjan yells at her senior, who acts as a dispensable conflict in each step of hers towards her dream.

Like I said before, the film is focused on its storytelling. Nowhere do the songs act as a distraction, nowhere does ultra-nationalism takes over the screen leaving behind the story, nowhere do the soldiers stylishly walk towards the screen in slow-mo while they light up something in the background. All the elements present in the film blend in beautifully with the story it's trying to tell.

The writers, director and the cinematographer have done a good job by keeping things simple. The conflict is relatable, and there were times I felt the need to watch the film in a theatre. Janhvi Kapoor as Gunjan Saxena does a good job. Even though she slips and trips at a few places, she manages to get back on her feet and carry the emotionally heavy scenes on her shoulder. However, my favourite was Pankaj Tripathi. He was such a relief to watch on screen. He effortlessly plays the role of a father who advises his daughter to break the cage of patriarchy and fly to the sky with confidence. He was such a treat to watch.

Now that you're here, check out our latest video: