We need to make more war movies like Hollywood: Borpujari

Sidharth Bardwaj
GOA: Utpal Borpujari from Assam has directed one of the first non-feature documentaries on the battles fought in the northeast during the Second World War between the British Indian Army and the Japanese forces (‘Memories of a Forgotten War'). Talking to TOI, Borpujari shared the feelings of angst and sadness that Indian war veterans feel and how cinema can help showcase the northeast in its true colours.
TOI: How did the idea of making a movie on this topic come up?
Borpujari: I and the producer, Subimal Bhattacharjee, both hail from Assam and I have been a journalist for 17-18 years. Even while working in Delhi, I used to write a lot about the northeast. Not many people know about these battles and Subimal, who is a defence analyst, suggested that we make a movie on this issue.
What were the challenges you faced while making the film?
To do complete justice to the film we talked to actual war veterans who had participated in the battles that took place in Imphal and Kohima. It has been more than 70 years and very few people are alive to share the tales. Also the idea was to make an unbiased tale of individual experiences of soldiers. From ideation to completion, it took us three years. There were use of multiple languages and that itself was a challenging task.
Do you think Indian filmmakers, despite a great military history, has explored the war genre to its potential?
There are a lot of passionate untold stories. Our war genre is limited to a few films like Haqeeqat, Hindustan Ki Kasam and Border. As far as the Second World War is concerned, this is probably the first. There are so many individual stories which can be made into a movie. War movies require a lot of funding and producers are not willing to take the risk. We need to take up projects the way Hollywood does.
Can a vibrant cinema from the northeastern states help in bridging the gap between the two different corners of the country?
If more films are made and shot in the region, it will definitely help in giving a better picture to the people residing in the two corners of the country. It should not be like the way ‘Dil Se' was made. The movie's plot was based on the northeast, but was shot in Himachal Pradesh. Similarly, the biopic on boxer Mary Kom did not have a single shot from Manipur. People have this wrong notion of security concerns about the region.
What were the feelings of people who had witnessed and fought the war?
There is a feeling about their sacrifices not being recognized. A veteran talked about how soldiers gave their lives in the war and today, their families are not even getting pension from the government. These soldiers were not recognized by either the British Army nor the India government after the war got over. The people from the region also feel that their history is not part of the Indian history. Nobody knows about the role the region played in the India's freedom struggle.
There are a lot of passionate untold stories. Our war genre is limited to a few films. There are so many individual stories which can be made into a movie. War movies require a lot of funding and producers are not willing to take the risk