Bhaag Milkha Bhaag

Farhan Akhtar offers the performance of a lifetime in a film that moves one to tears

At 189 minutes, the experience of watching and thinking about this movie is going to take up half your day. But since the film is about a young nation, split in two and recovering from birth by Caesarean section, it will not be time unwisely spent. Bhaag Milkha Bhaag is a bio of our greatest living athlete, but the focus is entirely on the traumatic national history that he emerged from. Milkha Singh has a beautiful physique, but he is permanently scarred within, lost in the nightmare of a partition that destroyed his childhood.

Many survivors of genocide have often said the same thing—that they feel guilty all their lives for having survived, leaving the dead behind. And, for all its many flaws, this movie moves one to tears for conveying the experience of such a human being, unable to erase memories of a dreadful history. Playing this supremely talented man is Farhan Akhtar, and it is the performance of a lifetime.

The next best actor is Divya Dutta, who plays his sister, Isri Kaur, having survived, like Milkha, and bonded with him for life. The loveliest scene is when Milkha comes to see her in his ‘India’ blazer and she fails to recognise him and respectfully asks, “Haan ji?” Then he asks her to put the blazer on, as though it were her triumph, and in its pockets are his gifts to her.

The movie is also good at conveying Milkha’s magnetic personality and his ability to draw people towards him. Natural athleticism has natural sex appeal, and Milkha’s brief relationship with a pretty Australian girl (Rebecca Breeds) in Melbourne has none of the awkwardness usually associated with such scenes.

The length of these two sequences is perfect. But most others continue endlessly. In truth, the shooting material is not excessive. The problem is that the director refuses to call ‘cut’ when a sequence, or even a small scene, is naturally over.

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Ajit Duara