Hey Ram

During Partition, Saket Ram, an archaeologist living in Calcutta, loses his wife in a riot. His grief pushes him toward a religious nationalist organisation and into a plan to kill Gandhi. The film tells this from the old Ram's deathbed in 1999, looking back. Kamal Haasan wrote, directed, produced and starred. The cast includes Rani Mukerji, Shah Rukh Khan, Hema Malini and Naseeruddin Shah, who plays Gandhi. It was shot simultaneously in Tamil and Hindi. The subject caused argument in India. Some critics said that in trying to understand religious nationalism the film gave it room; defenders called it one of the few works to show how violence is produced. The Partition sequences were filmed with a harshness rare in Indian cinema of the time. It was submitted as India's Oscar entry that year. It did not succeed commercially and only later came to be spoken of as Haasan's most ambitious work. Who it is for: viewers who like political history films and Kamal Haasan. Who it is not for: anyone wanting an easy moral frame; the film lets its protagonist appear justified for a long stretch.