Directed by Samarth Mahajan, Borderlands is a national award-winning story of 6 people in different partition-affected regions of India, like Imphal, Nargaon, Birgunj, Jodhpur and Dinanagar.
Instead of documenting several people in each of these regions, this film takes the route of speaking to one person in depth. In many ways, that makes the film's emotion much stronger. Apart from the overarching theme of the effect the partitions of our subcontinent have had on these people, this film takes on a mammoth task. It touches upon multiple themes like education, patriarchy, motherhood, sexuality, trafficking, and more. Perhaps because of this, there is something in this film that touches everyone’s heart.
For Mahajan, the concept of his documentary emerged from one of his previous works; a documentary on the travellers who ride in the general compartment of the Indian Railways called The Unreserved. One of the interviews in this documentary was with a Kashmiri passenger, who expressed love for Pakistan, but whose brother was in the Indian army. There was a complexity in this conversation out of which, somehow, some way, Borderlands germinated.
A story that sticks out is of Dhauli, who had to move from Bangladesh to India because of her marriage. She lives separated from her family and hasn’t met them in a decade and a half. She gets to see them sometimes, because of the Milan Bazaar, a haat where a market is set up along the border. Citizens, and sometimes separated families, exchange gifts at the end of a long stick. Unfortunately, there is no carrot at the end of it.
Often, we perceive documentaries as being separate from the filmmakers. Objective. This film is that in the largest sense, even while being immensely personal. Mahajan documents his own mother, who lives in a border district, Dinanagar. She expresses her dejection at not being able to pursue her passion: teaching.
On his transformation in the process of making this film, Mahajan said, "Through this entire process, I came much closer to my mother, and for me, that's been the biggest personal transformation.” “I also lost hair and gained weight," he added on a funny note.
Having dedicated her whole life to raising her family, in a touching scene in the film, she expresses her sadness at how her son doesn’t speak to her much, and how children these days don’t consider their parents' emotions. The magic of this documentary is that by choosing to show these moments, it reiterates the very concept of separation, be it physical or emotional. Separation is the unfortunate thing that ties every single character in this film together.
Mahajan starts a poignant conversation with his film, one that is informed by the fact that he is from a border town that was attacked in 2015. He said, "Border towns and villages only feature in the news when there's an attack. There's a hostility surrounding those areas, and it became important to question those notions at some point."
Despite being a film situated in different lands ravaged by partitions, this film shows the love that exists there too. There is a surprising sense of lightness at the end of this film, which comes after grappling with the most difficult contemporary issues in our country. Mahajan aptly said, “This is more of a south Asian film than an Indian film.”
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