Right when Gunjan Saxena is on the brim of her work excellence wanting to soar higher, serving in the Kargil War, we see a politician on TV proposing to bar women from the Indian Air Force given their ‘safety’ and how if anything bad happens to them, it will bring shame to the country. This immensely illogical argument wrapped in the pretense of making sense, is why Gunjan Saxena: A Kargil Girl becomes an important film after all.
Helming a constant narrative of feminism through a groundbreaking story of the first woman who got in as flight commandent in the IAF, the film centerpieces Gunjan Saxena (Janhvi Kapoor), who after a small anecdote in her childhood, only dreams and breathes to fly a plane someday. This unwavering zeal doesn’t see gender roles as an obstacle, but also doesn’t see anything other than becoming a pilot as motivation. The latter is the second most prominent narrative in the film: serving the IAF to fly a plane, and not for patriotism per se. This right here is why I’m glad her story is told now, at a time like this when this narrative isn’t a crime or an impossibility.
The opening sequence of the film, just like its title stems around The Kargil War, and that might make one assume it as a war film. Deliberately, it is not one. The war here is the backdrop to Gunjan’s story and through her, the story of so many women who just dreamt and made something happen. I just cannot talk about her victories without mentioning the beauty named Pankaj Tripathi, who plays Gunjan’s father in the film and is unknowingly but unapologetically a feminist, who I keep wanting more from, and there just aren’t enough awe sequences with him in frame, and there never can be. His versatility clearly knows no bounds and this film is just one speck in a universe full of his best works.
I sadly cannot say the same about Jahnvi Kapoor here. She stops seeming like a misfit after a point. There has been a lot of time given to the audience to know Gunjan completely, and once we do Janhvi’s portrayal doesn’t seem so bad. She either acted like she did because it fit the timid, shy yet childlike personality Gunjan had, or she got saved with her bland and repetitive performance because it bode well with her role after all. Either way, it is hard to hate her altogether in this film.
Treatment wise, the film does include some stereotypical ways of engagement as found in most commercial films these days. But as the film proceeds forward, this too keeps disappearing. Like when she enters the IAF and faces sexism all the way, the representation might seem too shabby and poorly researched as well, but when she gets called out for having lesser air hours when she was not even allowed to fly, that is when the trajectory of oppression anywhere is given importance.
To sum it up, Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl says that excellence in any field doesn’t require imaginary institutions of belief, like patriotism in this case, but only a will to learn something and perform. For me, Gunjan choosing IAF as the best replacement of her being a pilot, will be a big breakthrough in the process of minimizing forced nationalism through films.
The F Word 