A Film Doesn’t Feel Like Propaganda If You Never Pause to Notice - Page 5

Originally posted by: DobbyDeol

Meh. All movies are propaganda. Always have been. People only notice when they disagree.

Yes James Cameron Avatar from 2009. The one Govinda might've been in. That movie so much pro environment. It was grating

Originally posted by: naaznin

SP aslam, major iqbal , Rahman baloch died during Manmohan Singh's era. But movies shows death after 2014 crediting for nothing they done.

Propoganda is not showing ISI agents as evil or showing Pakistan in bad light but propoganda is showing opposition as anti national n current government as only one caring for nation.

If Hamza reached there in say 2003-4 and then took over after Baloch’s death obviously it would’ve happened before 2014. Did they mention the year?

Originally posted by: Clochette

An interpretation of my writings teinted by the bias against me.

bold = ridiculous reaction

bold = hollow words

Ok so when he called Modi his friend those were hollow words..but if he says he stopped Op Sindoor thats the ultimate truth.

My ridiculous reaction came from ur observation that the labels didn’t work for u..implying they were useless

Originally posted by: Kyahikahoon

If Hamza reached there in say 2003-4 and then took over after Baloch’s death obviously it would’ve happened before 2014. Did they mention the year?

It was shown after elections in India so obviously it was after 2014

Originally posted by: Hormuzie

You seem extremely triggered by so called propaganda movie ... you are looking really obsessed with movie you despise so much spending hours watching it and discussing minute details

There have been plenty of pro pakistan movies from islamists of bollywood mascarading as atgiests and seculars which never got such extreme reactions from hindu indians.

I think people from perticular community still has their cord attached to everything pakistan for them to get so much affected by a anti terrorism pro india movie from a small time director.

Never saw such such attention given to minute details in the movie pathan.

The community accepted that pro pakistani propaganda with an open heart. They were very happy celebrating the (corporate induced)numbers also

Shahrukh khan ki jai jaikar karte nahi thakne wale logo se pro india propaganda jhela nahi ja raha

Par chalo both sides have their share of propaganda movies running to keep everyone on their toes. It's all about the individual preference at the end of the day.

For saying this why to create MIDs😂 u can create MIDs for a movie I can't even discuss it. Why u r getting triggered if someone is criticizing.

I never did jay jaykar of pathan. I didn't even liked the movie. All this RAW n ISI love affair never made sense. Spy universe should have been till ek tha tiger only because in that tiger didn't knew zoya was from ISI n he was retiring. Even ppl who were making the movie knew what they r showing is stupid. John's character was making fun of it in pathan movie itself.

Originally posted by: naaznin

It was shown after elections in India so obviously it was after 2014

As far as I know Modi’s swearing in was shown in the sequel and Akshaye’s character died in the first movie

Originally posted by: Hormuzie

I am waiting....

Wow the guy can really fly

just asking a simple question that “ did you pause….” made you upset and started name calling andhbhakts, hate mongers, violent,…..and assuming things like my thinking, my thought process, my understanding capabilities,…,,

but you can assume things and generalise entire generations and write whatever $h!t you want. Bravo 👏

Originally posted by: TorinoPasta

Why are you giving blanket judgements on behalf of millenials and gen z?? ??

Because she can’t handle the movie’s success. Simple. So elderly is taking out frustration on the younger generation.

Originally posted by: asmitamohanty

Hey thank you for the response...

But may be you did not get me or probably I couldn't explain myself properly..

That is not the point I am making.I am not questioning anyone’s right to tell this story, nor am I denying the factual basis of the larger chain of events as that doesn't matter to me.As i said i saw it as a gangster movie and D1 was really engaging and entertaining to me. My objection is much narrower and more specific: why use real 26/11 footage and transcripts at all?

If the story is strong, then dramatization should be enough. The same events could have been recreated cinematically without borrowing the actual images and audio of a national trauma that many people still carry in their bodies and memory. That is my issue.

Real footage does something different from fiction. It does not just inform the audience; it reopens collective memory. It brings in the weight of a wound that already exists outside the film. And once that weight is imported, the film is no longer relying only on storytelling. It is relying on trauma recognition.

So my criticism is not “you should never show this.” It is if the dramatic purpose can be achieved without using the actual wound, then why reach for the real wound at all? The answer seems obvious to me i.e. because real trauma carries an emotional authority that fiction has to earn.

That is where it feels manipulative. Not in the sense of being illegal or even necessarily false, but in the sense of deliberately steering emotion through something too painful to be merely aesthetic...

D1 is a technically solid movie...but i looked at it as "Historical fiction" but the story weaved by Dhar by involving real life incidences like Kandhar hijack, Parliament attack, 26/11 was so moving that it made people believe that operation Dhurandhar was real...That blurred line would not have happened if there was no real footages may be....

Hi,

I hope it’s alright if I answer something here which I hope can explain why the use of real footage.

To begin with, I am a resident of Mumbai. I have been born and raised in Mumbai, lived all my life here - most of my family, friends are from here. There are so many things that would always be a part of my memories no matter where I go in life when I think about Mumbai. The 26/11 attacks, the 26/07 floods, the numerous bomb blasts in Mumbai since late 90s are things I’ve lived through. I don’t have to rely on anyone else’s accounts to tell you what they felt like… I just need to think about the event and the memories come flooding back instantly as if I am back in time.

You asked 2 questions - what appeals to people when it comes to this movie and why the real footage.

I will tell you 2 incidents related to my own family. I am a Hindu, my dad was a self made man who ran his own business and had purchased an office with his hard earned money with a lot of pride and happiness. Less than 6 years later he had to sell the place because men associated with Dawood had taken a shine to the locality and wanted to purchase the buildings in it. You had 2 options - sell at whatever price they pay you or take a bullet to the head. My dad obviously made the decision to sell the property. This is the first incident.

Remember those bomb blasts I mentioned earlier? My mom was a simple homemaker, one evening she was simply out getting groceries from the nearby market when a bomb blast happened in the vicinity at the railway station which was adjoining the market. Those were some of the worst hours of my life and that of my younger brother and dad’s. There was a stampede like situation where my mom was caught and she didn’t own a mobile back then. My dad was on his way home already and I called him as soon as I saw the news on TV, my brother was very young - about 12 years old and he was a mess and crying for mom. Thankfully, she was unharmed and was home later at night. My dad had went looking for her and got her home. The next morning my mom was a mess because it was for the first time ever that my brother and I had went to bed on an empty stomach; something she realised only when she woke up next morning. My whole family had exhausted themselves to sleep that night.In all those years, I saw no government do anything substantial to Pakistan or any of the terrorists that would hurt us.

People who lived anywhere knew that 26/11 happened, I know my fellow countrymen were in shock too and they were mourning with us. But you had to have been a resident of the city to know how unsafe we felt in the wake of that attack and were afraid of stepping out of our homes just to do mundane things like going to college, going out with friends, buying groceries or shopping or just stepping out for a walk or a drive because you were bored. We had previously seen bomb blasts happen everywhere in the country and knew that one could happen anywhere, anytime… but the idea of armed gunmen opening fire at us in random places where we were just going about with our lives was a new threat that had been unleashed on us. We were scared but more than that we were furious and loathing the people who were running our country at the time. I remember thinking that Vilasrao Deshmukh deserves to be slapped around publicly by as many of people as possible when he shamelessly escorted his son and Ram Gopal Verma to Taj, as if it were a picnic spot and he had booked some VIP spots in it for them.

But worse than him was the government in Centre, an absolutely impotent, pathetic, incompetent, useless and shameless man who was supposed to be PM was making it sound like not going after Pakistan was some kind of high moral ground that he deserved a medal for being on.

I swear to god, I had no idea until then what hating someone was like …

All this was mentioned so I could probably answer your questions and hopefully you understand why my answers are what they are.

1) I enjoyed watching Dhurandhar 1 & 2 and would watch them as often as possible because I have never seen a movie be so unapologetic about naming Pakistan as the terror of hub that it is, about showing that it deserves to be destroyed without any remorse, regret or guilt. I absolutely loved that Dawood was shown as a dying, pathetic man wasting away who doesn’t even deserve the luxury of a quick and easy death because that swine burning for a 1000 years in hell wouldn’t be enough for a punishment. I make no apologies about hating Dawood and Pakistan and hoping to see them pay and rot in the hell they deserve. I hope that answers number one - what do people get. People like me got satisfaction and we won’t pretend we didn’t enjoy it. I would have gone for a Dhurandhar 3 as well if there was one.

2) Why real footage you ask…

The events of 26/11 are fresh in the minds of those like me who lived through them. We don’t need to be asked to recall Barkha Dutt on our screens practically giving away the movements of our forces to everyone including the terrorists. We saw that by ourselves. I was almost an adult by the time and remember thinking that if I can see a commando entering the building on live TV, so would the terrorists inside the hotel even if one TV was on anywhere and getting an exact idea of where to go to attack our forces. They would use hostages to shield themselves against any attack by our forces.

Dhar showed a brief glimpse of what kind of an absolute disaster and self sabotaging move that was by our media. But more than that he used the real footage to provide an idea that these attacks were not just random but well thought out attacks, they had not been executed by poor men lured to terrorism in a bid to ensure their families survived even if they didn’t… but that these were indoctrinated terrorists whose sole motive was hatred towards us for simply being who we are - Hindus or Jews - for existing.

You have to remember, the movie is made in India but is not limited to Indian audiences alone. It was going to go global even if it was banned in Middle East regardless by means of OTT platforms like Netflix.

Not everyone will understand the gravity of 26/11, the sheer hatred and the kind of atrocities committed on that day necessarily. When you add footage that’s real… and this is barely a few minutes long… it makes even those who had no idea grasp somewhat… what the experience was like for real people. The cast was made to hear 45 minutes of real footage before they shot that scene as confirmed by many in podcasts now. Dhar gave us barely 2 minutes of the same.. he had them sit for 45 minutes so they knew what they were expected to perform like.. who were they playing and what those people were talking like, behaving like.

If Dhar wanted to show real propaganda, he could have included scenes about Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka who was 6 months pregnant at the time. Only their 2 year old son miraculously survived. There’s no official confirmation of this but there have been rumours that she was assaulted and tortured before being killed.

Adding real footage is to ensure that the generation who was too young to grasp what happened back then gets to realise the horror they may have only a passing knowledge of as well as for the international audiences and community to grasp what monsters we have been dealing with since ages.

In today’s world, we have movies where US shows their forces as the good guys regardless of how far that maybe from the truth and for a long time people believed that. That’s narrative and propaganda, that’s whitewashing the reality but ironically until recently no one called it that.

When Jews make movies on the holocaust, they do so unapologetically even despite the hate and other negative comments that may come their way. They do so to tell the world what happened to them and while there are people who will claim this is propaganda and brainwashing blah blah… no one can deny that the holocaust really did happen. When a Jew makes a movie about the same it’s not just to show the atrocities their people have faced and survived, it’s also to show that nothing has been able to keep them down regardless of what they faced and endured.

With Dhurandhar we are finally stepping into the same territory where we aren’t apologetic about the actions we do now that hurt those who have provoked us by their actions. We are trying to make the world understand the reality that has ironically been ignored and worse buried by our own industry who would rather make movies showing RAW and ISI are on the same page and fighting against the same kind of people who are our common enemies when nothing can be further from the truth and facts.

If you want to break the narrative that has been built for decades, unfortunately by traitors amidst your own people - you can’t be subtle about it. To shatter it once and for all you need to go at it with the force of a sledgehammer on steroids - it’s why the real footage - after all it’s the raw and brutal truth. The idea was to make people think, to question, to make them uncomfortable… because Dhar wants you to wonder what kind of a response is warranted in the face of such an event and then look at history to see what was actually done.

The fact that Dhar has you asking questions tells me he succeeded. You are trying to understand why would he do such a thing.

Maybe eventually you will even ask - why would we need an Aditya Dhar to make 2 damn movies to tell us something that was abundantly clear from the beginning. We were being governed by people who had a duty and a responsibility to not just protect us but also avenge us when they failed. But, not only did they fail to protect us, worse, they failed to avenge our people to redeem for their mistakes and had the audacity to claim some kind of a moral duty towards humanity or whatever nonsense to justify their own traitorous acts against the citizens of the nation they had vowed to serve.

I hope you have your answers.