Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

Updates:

Partition (2007)

Director: Vic Sarin

Time Out rating

Average user rating

No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Set in India over the dozen years following the outbreak of WWII, director Vic Sarin’s expansive, Canadian-financed period drama mixes Eastern and Western influences to sadly alienating effect. Neve Campbell sports a passable ‘Raj’ English accent as the sister of a British Army captain; and Jimi Mistry is surprisingly moving as one of a pair of his loyal Sikh soldiers, the enlightened and honourable Gian, who strikes up a relationship across the religious divide with Muslim Naseem (Kristin Kreuk) while his fellow Sikh combatant takes a more militant role in the internecine strife that immediately precedes and follows India’s independence in 1948.

The period reconstructions are impressive but the script and direction are a little pedestrian. However, while all the film’s emotions and supplications are over-emphatically signalled and underlined – witness Gian’s poor, pathetic son crying in the rain when mom’s away in Pakistan – there’s no doubting the sincerity of the film’s morally progressive vision.

Author: Wally Hammond 2008-09-09 10:32:17

Time Out London Issue 1986, 11-17 Sept