‘Pathaan’ is a frustrating film because it does not want to make things too difficult but it also does not want to take the easy way out. It does not mind being silly but it certainly will not become stupid. Perhaps to resolve these contradictory impulses, it chooses to be a fan-service film, something that requires a certain amount of blind faith on part of the audience but also a deep and nuanced knowledge of the world the star who helms it inhabits.
‘Pathaan’ is first and foremost a ritual. According to sociologist Émile Durkheim, when a community or society comes together and simultaneously communicates the same thought and participates in the same action, it represents a collective effervescence. That is, the group members experience a loss of individuality and a unity with gods, where the god and the society are the same and the clan itself transfigures into a symbol, the totem pole around which they gather with strong emotion.
So what can the film offer to non-fan viewers like this author, who have the background knowledge but not the blind faith?
This is not the first time a Shah Rukh film and the man became indistinguishable from one another. In ‘My Name is Khan’ (MNIK), Shah Rukh urged an increasingly Islamophobic world to not see all Muslims as terrorists. Moving on from what now seems like innocent times when the deeply problematic discourse of “good Muslims and bad Muslims” retained some currency, India now finds itself at a stage where proving one’s patriotism through a trial by fire (for example, in ‘Chakde India’) will bear no results. The Khan of ‘Pathaan’ is the older, weary and (literally and figuratively) broken version of the man in MNIK and Chakde. He has given up trying to prove his patriotism – if you are not yet convinced, you are unlikely to ever be. If you happen to be one of those blessed with blind faith, this film will not only help you reiterate your beliefs, it will also give you renewed energy to go out into the world filled with hate, despair and anger.
John Abraham, who plays the antagonist Jim in the film, mentioned in a post-release press conference that Shah Rukh Khan is not a man but an emotion. This film, which is also the star, the nation and its audience all at once, is similarly an emotion. This is why it does not make the treatment of very complex issues difficult or easy. The issues are presented as Indians experience them.
