1942 : A Love Story

1994 ? col/scope Hindi d/p/co-s Vidhu Vinod Chopra pc Vinod Chopra Prod. co-st/dial Kaamna Chandra co-s Shiv Subrahmanyam, Sanjay Bhansali lyr Javed Akhtar c Binod Pradhan m R.D. Burman lp Anil Kapoor, Manisha Koirala, Jackie Shroff, Anupam Kher, Danny Denzongpa, Manohar Singh, Sushma Seth, Chandni, Brian Glover, Pran Sikand, Raghuvir Yadav

A love story set amid the Quit India agitations during WW2. In the Himalayan foothills, the blundering, apolitical Naren (Kapoor) falls in love with the local girl Rajjo (Koirala). Since his father (Singh) is committed to colonial rule, while her father is a revolutionary terrorist, their love affair leads to the exposure of a terrorist plot to assassinate the evil British General Douglas (Glover), modelled on popular versions of General Dyer of the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy. Eventually, Naren joins the terrorists led by Shubhankar (Shroff) and, in a long drawn-out climax, achieves the deed and leads a popular revolt against the colonial power. The film, with at times remarkable camerawork revealing its New Indian Cinema antecedents, contributes to the major 90s revival of ‘nationalist’ themes, recalling the values of the Independence struggle (cf. Mani Rathnam’s work), even enjoining the audience to stand up for the national anthem which closes the performance. Its enormously successful music was released after the death of the composer Burman.

Film