Spoilers ahead…
Though Rajkummar Rao plays the nominal protagonist and gets a small character-growth arc, this is a film that belongs to everyone, the ‘bheed’.
Anubhav Sinha’s latest attempt at movie-making / conscience-pricking / dialogue-initiating is titled Bheed, and it gets going 13 days after the first pandemic-lockdown, when more migrants began walking back to their hometowns. Let’s dwell, first, on that title, which refers to a crowd. “Bahut bheed hai,” we say, when entering a crowded theatre or bus, but the bheed here refers to the billions that make up India. Yes, on the surface, the title is about the crowds of hapless migrants on the roads, but Anubhav always likes to zoom back a little from the issue in focus and talk a little more about the various aspects of our society, like caste and class. This is a film of metaphors and symbols. The action is set around a check post in Tejpur district, when states clamp down on their boundaries, refusing to let people enter or leave. That check post is the monolithic System through which we have to find ways to sneak through in order to live our lives.
You can read the rest of the review here:
https://www.galatta.com/hindi/movie/review/bheed/
And you can watch the video review here:
Copyright ©2023 GALATTA.
Baradwaj Rangan 
brangan
March 25, 2023
The video review is up.
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Akshay
March 26, 2023
Saw it today in an almost empty theatre – while the movie is well intentioned and for the most part well crafted, I couldn’t connect to it the way I did with Article 15.
Some of the scenes especially involving the news reporter crew came across too preachy to me. Also first 15 mins are a bit jarring – things only start coming together once the checkpost is set up.
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brangan
March 26, 2023
Akshay: “one man’s journey” films like ARTCLE 15 are always more “connectable” than mosaic pieces like this one. Still, I found this quite absorbing — the early scene with Bhumi etc. really worked fror me.
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multifab
March 26, 2023
What kind of bhaand you are, I can fully understand either you are paid for it, or you are brainwashed product of left liberal ecosystem, काला कुत्ता नहीं गया देखने फिर भी गुण गा रहे हो, days are over when propaganda movies were planted in gullible public mind, narrative was controlled by the scoundrels like अनुभव सिन्हा.
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Anu Warrier
March 26, 2023
Troll alert?
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Rocky
March 27, 2023
Sinha lifted the idea of Article 15 from a real life incident but very conveniently changed the caste of the preparator from Yadav to Brahmin. why? Kyonkee agenda ooncha rahe hamara.
The incident happened when Yadav of Samajwadi Party was the CM , but the ishara in the movie was towards the BJP govt.
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Rocky
March 27, 2023
BTW All the current and ex Film Companion critics ( they all had boycotted TKF) have given a positive review to Bheed.
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Apu
March 27, 2023
Thanks for the review BR
multifab: Troll with a profile photo?
Rocky: Maybe you can view a movie as a report on a tragedy that actually happened without needing to tear it down as an agenda? Wasn’t it the same thing that the far right asked people to do for the Kashmir files?
It is indeed sad when tragedies are measured by whose fault it is, rather than the impact- thousands were stuck with no clear instructions to go back home (could have been accommodated at the same place where they worked and slept), with miserable living conditions in the waiting area, with inhuman conditions in the trains – heat, no wonder, people crammed in. And when they were run over by trains, the propaganda machines said the victims are at fault and the victims actually wanted to commit suicide.
NGOs and random people setup charities to donate to these people, and the government was mostly MIA.
Unquestionably, it is a major failure of a government which has money, majority power in parliament and a bunch of thugs to otherwise do its bidding like beating up peaceful demonstrators and causing riots.
And yeah, talking about Kashmir files – the same government in power right now at the Center supported the then government in power when the tragedy happened. So, maybe we should not have been surprised.
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Rocky
March 28, 2023
Apu bhai- I never said anything about Bheed ( no need , the movie tanked and how)
Re.- It is indeed sad when tragedies are measured by whose fault it is, rather than the impact.
Sir, but your rest of the rant after this sentence is exactly that , how the present Govt. failed………
Kuch bhee !
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Anu Warrier
March 30, 2023
I don’t know if it released here but wouldn’t have been able to catch it, anyway. Waiting for it to release on OTT. I’ll watch anything by Anubhav Sinha – flaws or not, I consider him one of our most important story tellers.
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Abhirup
March 30, 2023
Is there any particular reason you wrote “the Rajkummar Rao character” or “the Dia Mirza character” instead of Surya or Geetanjali, which are what the characters are called in the film? Just asking, since it makes for an odd and stilted writing style.
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RK
April 13, 2023
I have not seen the movie & cannot comment on it. For anyone interested in this topic, which should be all of us, The Great Abandonment is a great documentary on Guardian. It is gut wrenching & a very difficult watch.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2022/nov/23/the-great-abandonment-the-extraordinary-exodus-of-indias-migrant-labourers?utm_term=642d9b0ff2dbb661b1824044a9d8ff49&utm_campaign=GuardianDocumentaries&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=docos_email
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brangan
May 24, 2023
Now on Netflix…
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