Train to Pakistan

The script is full of foul language, even if it is Punjabi (which is to indicate that the village is in Punjab). It feels as if the director is patronising you, and that the viewer has to be reminded again and again that the villagers were uneducated. The acting, especially that of Nirmal Panday, is simply awful; which is confusing as the actors are very capable and some even distinguished. They are directed to soap opera standards. Nirmal Panday leaves a lot to be desired; it feels as if he has just walked his character off of the sets of Bandit Queen and into Train To Pakistan. The crudeness and cackling is still all there! Since 1946, Punjab was suffering from communal violence all over as individual sides were carrying out 'eye for an eye' killings and looting by mostly gangsters. They looted villages and carried onto the next; Punjab was a bloodbath and vultures circulated the area for years (the North Western Frontier violence was ongoing since 1946, just as in Calcutta, Bihar, Bengal and Bombay). So it is confusing at how relaxed the villagers are before the trains come in! The film fails to capture Kushwant Singh's emotions and human tragedies. To pitch this film against Deepa Mehta's 1947 Earth, there is no comparison. Deepa Mehta probably unintentionally paid more homage to Kushwant Singh than Pamela Rooks has, and it's a shame, as the novel readers probably already know.