✰¢reative ¢onstellation✰: #447 Movie Review: Sita Ramam

Movie Review: Sita Ramam

This post is a part of Blogchatter Blog Hop and link it to www.theblogchatter.com

Image Source: Google Images

This movie revolves around the love story of a princess, Noor Jahan with a lieutenant in the Indian army, Ram working in the Madras Regiment in the year 1965. The movie opens up with the operation of Gibraltar with the revelation of annexing Kashmir. Major Tariq Mohammad, Brigadier from Pakistan Army, gets the news that the Terrorist group Mujahidin wants to accomplish this mission of taking charge of Kashmir with the help of the Indian Army which he simply dismisses then he gets the confirmation from a senior officer. Mujahideen group trains 5 boys of under 18 years of age to go to Kashmir and live with locals.

Pakistan’s youth President in London, Afreen is shown discussing the matter on a News Channel when a riot took place between Indian and Pakistani students. She, out of anger, burns the car of Anand Mehta, who has sponsored the education of many students at the University of London. She is then asked to apologize to Anand Mehta by the Dean which she firmly denies. She’s left with one option, to pay 1 million as an amount of compensation for the car (or else she will be rusticated from the university), in a month’s time and she agrees to accept this option. She decided to fly to her home Karachi, to take help from his grandfather Brigadier Tariq.

On reaching Karachi, she founds that her grandfather is no more. When she was contacted many times before, she ignored the calls and she was angry about being sent to London for studies, which was against her wish. She meets with the lawyer and asks him the compensation of 10Lakh. The lawyer hands her the letter from her grandfather. While reading that letter, she gets to know that her grandfather regrets not fulfilling the last wish of Lieutenant Ram for the last 20 years, to send the letter of Ram addressed to Sita Mahalaxmi. So, now the responsibility lies on Afreen to send the letter to Sita Mahalaxmi to get the compensation amount 10Lakh from the lawyer.

Afreen leaves for India in search of Sita Mahalaxmi and directly heads to Noor Jahan Palace where the address was written, but couldn’t find Sita Mahalaxmi. She is accompanied by a senior Balaji who promises to help her in her mission. Surprisingly, the letter was written 20-years-ago which made it even more difficult to rely on the address. They first meet Subramaniam, working in the library of the Palace-turned-college, who denies knowing anyone named Sita. Then the idea strikes Afreen to start searching for Ram as she believes that with 3 information – his position(lieutenant), service year(1965), and regiment(Madras), she would be able to reach him. When Balaji and Afreen go to meet Balaji’s uncle working at Indian Army, he guides them to collect information about Ram from the library which allows the entry of civilians on Mondays. Afreen finds a picture of Ram in one of the magazines and shows it to the army officer, who checks other pages of the magazine. On finding a picture of Ram’s colleague, Vikas gives his address.

Vikas takes them to the year 1965, Madras Regiment working in Sri Nagar. The scene opens in LOC where Ram fires indirectly (not with an intention of killing the locals whom they suspect to be terrorists) on the order of Vishnu(his senior). Vishnu asks for a written explanation for missing the shots to Ram. Ram feels that it is okay for him to take the punishment instead of a lifetime regret of killing innocents.

After success in Kashmir’s mission, when a reporter from All-India-Radio comes to the headquarters of the Indian Army and asks them to send messages to their families, Ram says that he is an orphan. The reporter is moved by this sentence of Ram and requests all citizens to write letters to Ram as family members. Then comes a flood of letters for Ram and he also takes time out to answer each letter. Out of the pile of letters, he finds the letter of Sita Mahalaxmi who writes him as his wife, waiting for his return. Slowly the story progresses to bring Ram and Sita together. Sita Mahalaxmi is the pen name of princess Noor Jahan, through which she has been writing all those letters to Ram.

To improve the political relation between Hyderabad and Oman, his brother brings the marriage proposal of the son of Oman's King which she refuses, saying she loves a commoner and the news of their affairs is true. She leaves the palace to live with Ram as his wife. The day when she decides to tell Ram about her identity, Ram goes out on a mission. In that mission, Ram along with his senior Vishnu is caught by Pakistan Army when Ram goes inside a burning cottage to save child Afreen, granddaughter of Tareeq. They are sentenced to imprisonment and an order comes to release one of them. Vishnu reveals the coordinates of the Indian army camp to the Pakistan Army in lieu of being released and puts the blame of the traitor on Ram. In this way, the media starts to regard Ram as a traitor. This story is narrated to Afreen by Vishnu.

The story ends with Afreen seeking an apology from Sita while handing over the letter and a valedictory march for Ram.

My Opinion

This movie has an interesting plot, the major outline of the movie, a rich girl falling in love with an army man when he rescues her during a tough time reminds me of Veer Zara with an angle of inter-religion love. I didn’t feel like wasting my time after watching this movie and I can watch it later. So, I won’t put this movie into the category of a one-time watch. The movie beautifully unfolds while keeping all the suspense intact and everything becomes clear in the end. So, this movie can be better understood from the end to the beginning, in a reverse way. The actors have done a brilliant job. I have already watched a movie by Dulqeer Salman, Banglore Days, but it was my first movie starring Mrunal Thakur. I was mesmerized by the beauty of Mrinal and the style of acting to match such a fabulous actor like Dulqueer. I would prefer dubbed version to the one with subtitles and I am glad that the Hindi dubbed version was available. There was little humor here and there to make the plot a little less stressful. This movie has a happy ending. I wished it could have united Ram with Sita in the end! Overall, it is a must-watch movie and I would rate it 4.5/5.

For the prompt of [7thFeb-13thFeb] #BlogchatterBlogHop, along with this movie I would recommend, Before Trilogy Series - Before Sunrise(1995), Before Sunset(2004), and Before Midnight(2013). I have not been a very big fan of the genre romance but somehow started to explore this genre in 2020. What I like most about this series is the way the movie progresses so naturally through pure conversation between two strangers, who met on the train during the journey. Their conversation is funny, playful, deep, and interesting. How can you know more about a person without ever interacting or asking some deep and relevant questions? They depart each other without any commitment and leave their next meeting to fate and luckily their paths cross in the later sequels. Out of these movies in the trilogy, I liked the first one the most because that shows how they met, and other parts act as extensions of the first one in a more mature and profound way.

Image Source : Google Images

My third recommendation for the genre romance would be the series Love Is Blind – Japan. It is one of the most popular shows of 2022. I preferred the Japanese version over other versions because I thought I could connect well to the Asian culture. I have already written an article based on it which can be read here. So, in brief, it’s a dating show, where men and women would get to know each other by conversing with each other from their respective pods thereby completely removing the physical traits governing the choice of partner. Not every engaged couple in the show made it to the day of their marriages and I won’t spill the beans now. You must watch it to know the result in case you want to go with this recommendation.