Kajol, Ibrahim Ali Khan, and Prithviraj Sukumaran’s latest film Sarzameen, which released on JioHotstar on 25th July, has not been well received. While the film has gotten bad reviews, many have also been upset over Kajol’s limited screen time in the film. Recently, in a conversation with Zoom, Kayoze Iranoi revealed that he had to cut out a crucial chunk from Kajol’s character in the film. There was a flashback sequence that explained her character arc, which had to be dropped from the final cut. Kayoze revealed that the deletion of this part was deliberate after they got feedback from the Indian Army.
In the interview, Kayoze explained that Kajol’s character couldn’t be explored in depth due to a request from the Indian Army. He said that her scenes were cut not due to time constraints but because they wanted to be secured by the Indian Army. He had shown the film to them and also shared the script in order to get their permission for the release. And it was due to ‘sensitivity reasons’ that Kajol’s part was removed.
Kayoze also recalled how, when he had shown the rough edit to the Indian Army while in Delhi, they had strongly reacted to it. They sat with the team for 35 to 40 minutes, suggesting how the screenplay could be improvised and nuances could be gotten right. One strong requirement from them was that the story ‘be faithful to the men in uniform.’
Earlier in a conversation with SCREEN, Kajol had spoken about her character in Sarzameen and said, “In this film, I took a toll on my knees because Kayoze insisted that for every shot I had to start crying and keep falling on my knees. I got irritated with him, every scene I couldn’t keep falling just because it was written in the script, eventually I was like, what kind of a character is she that she keeps falling to her knees every five minutes.”
Sarzameen marks Kayoze Irani’s directorial debut and is Ibrahim Ali Khan’s second film after Naadaniyaan.
