Imtiaz Ali opens up about his decision not to glorify Amar Singh Chamkila: ‘He was not a neat and clean person’

“I never thought I would make a biopic. However, in Chamkila’s story, there were so many things I felt I should address since they’ve been hidden from the audience. However, when depicting someone’s life, you should have the liberty — not to change the facts, but to represent all aspects of them. If you don’t show the mistakes they made, then what’s the point of glorifying them? I do not like those biopics that endlessly glorify the person they are based on. That becomes very boring,” he said during a chat with Mid-Day.

“Chamkila is a case in point as there was this kind of dual response from the audience towards him. I felt that I had to present the human side of Chamkila. I did not set out to make him come across as this neat and clean person, which he was not. This is also because I knew a few intrinsic good qualities of him. I was very sure of them. He didn’t come across as a star; rather as a servant of the masses. He’s a deeply humble man, coming from the most disadvantaged background. He never threw a tantrum. He always agreed to everything that anyone asked him to do. And that’s how he lost his life because he couldn’t say no to the audience. He was that kind of guy and we understand. He has flaws,” Ali mentioned.

He also underscored the importance of retaining Chamkila’s imperfections in the film, believing that sanitising his character would detract from his relatability. “Then we wouldn’t have been able to relate to him. Sometimes it is the flaws and irregularities in a character that endear them to the audience. Then they know that this guy is human, thus enabling them to relate to and root for them,” he added.

In her review of the movie, The Indian Express’ Shubhra Gupta wrote, “Diljit Dosanjh internalises Amar Singh Chamkila’s hard-scrabble life and pain, and distills it into his fine-grained performance, playing an artiste who lived and died by his beliefs.”