Spoilers ahead…
Despite a clunky and messagey closing stretch, Nitesh Tiwari’s film is an engaging mellow-drama
In a late scene in Nitesh Tiwari’s Bawaal, Ajay and Nisha (the married couple played by Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor) play a drinking-game where they reveal things about one another: favourite books, favourite films, that sort of thing. After a while, Ajay points out that they have nothing in common. Nisha, ever the optimist, asks: “But is it necessary to be in agreement all the time?” Put differently, she’s asking if they cannot live happily despite their differences. Extrapolate this idea from a relationship to geopolitics, and we have this really big thought: Yes, we are all different countries, different races – but do those differences have to come in the way of peace and happiness and the basic things that would fit into a suitcase for our limited journey on this earth? Can’t we all just… get along?
You can read the rest of the review here:
https://www.galatta.com/hindi/movie/review/bawaal/
And you can watch the trailer / video review here:
Copyright ©2023 GALATTA.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Karishma
July 22, 2023
I watched this last night and it reminded me a lot of Dum Laga Ke Haisha – a very similarly prickly love story set in Haridwar instead of Lucknow where a man, not yet comfortable in his own skin, meets a woman with a perceived defect and finds he cannot be happy in his marriage with her, ostensibly because she’s not visibly perfect (overweight instead of epileptic) but really, it’s because he doesn’t love himself yet. And therefore, how can he love someone else? I enjoyed the smaller city milieu in both settings and so also the role of the actors playing family members trying to knock some sense into both Varun’s and Ayushman’s characters in both films. Excellently written review as well, BR.
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brangan
July 22, 2023
Karishma: Thanks. And yes, this did remind me of DLKH. It’s a very Ayushmann Khurrana zone. What have the general reviews been like?
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hari prasad
July 22, 2023
A section of people liked the unique concept and are calling the movie good ; while another section of people are calling it insensitive , taking it too far and toxic.
But the common complaint is that there’s a controversial dialogue about Auschwitz and it’s in piss poor taste.
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KK
July 22, 2023
I had a feeling that some people will find the whole world war II angle to be in bad taste and to be fair, the movie doesn’t push the metaphor of what’s happening in Ajju’s life to events in WWII except for a few stretches of dialogue. But I quite liked the movie. The ending was a bit too sentimental but other than that this is a very ambitious movie with a real sense of place and a great supporting cast. I totally bought into the universe. Though I would have liked to know more about Nisha like what she did before marriage.
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Vishnu
July 22, 2023
I don’n know if everyone here feels the same or not but these days the general reviews are no more reviews.. They judge a film through their value systems/ideologies/politics. So they come up with labels like insensitive, injustice to the biggest war tragedy, World War being trivialise etc. etc.
And I don’t understand why they expect a film whose idea germinated in A’s brain, imagined by B, directed by C to follow their own moral principles. I mean the characters of the story would not follow the credo of A, B and C who materialized the story but it has to follow these reviewer’s gender, religion and world politics. This judgement of fictional characters was more glaring in case of Kabir Singh and with this film it is not at that scale but I do see a reviewer’s politics of judging a film’s politics instead of reviewing it for its art and storytelling.
If that is the case, why to review in the first place because it is very evident that anything that you, morally, feel incorrect is going to be bashed by you irrespective of the cinematic value (low or high) the film wants to add.
Really strange trend it is where the line between judgement and review/analysis is thinner than threadbare and deliberately so!
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KK
July 22, 2023
Vishnu: I completely agree with your view. One of the so called critics who does this very often is Anna M M Vetticad. She always judges the movie based on its politics than the inherent cinematic value. I have seen Rahul Desai also falling to this habit time and time again. While I completely agree that movies can be judged on their political leanings but a movie can’t be judged solely good or bad on its ideology. I remember Rahul Desai criticizing ADHM for what he called its compromised hindu muslim stance. While the circumstances when the movie released called for this angle to be scrutinized but the movie was never about hindu muslim issues.
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Vishnu
July 22, 2023
Initially I used to think these are very isolated and sporadic incidences but the frequency has been on, quite, a rise. One of reviewers called out that R Madhavan was trying to put forth the point that Nambi Narayanan was a Hindu patriot. While visibly thete was no religious angle in the film. If I am not wrong Madhavan tweeted about it also and rightly so. Similarly one reviewer ( while reviewing Indra Kumar’s Thank God starring Ajay Devgn and Sidhdharth Malhotra) pointed out that how all the ex girl friends of the lead character were Hindus. This observation for a film which was a dramedy and nothing to do with anything related to any religion even remotely except mythical figures like CG and YD. If this reviewer had his way then the famous Nirma jingle would have gone like ” Juliya, Jubieda, Jassi aur Jaya, Sabki pasand Nirma”. The same can be observed in many reviews of ‘The song of scorpions’ which has nothing to do with religious politics but people were busy highlighting how muslim lead of Aadam was complemented by a Hindu Munna. Irony is these observers call themselves progressive whereas, in reality, a common cine goer is far more progressive who likes or dislikes a film for its sheer engagement value.
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KK
July 22, 2023
That rocketry reviewer was none other than Anupama chopra. And I completely agree. Take Kashmir Files. When Haider came out everybody defended the way army was shown because it was their pov. Now people won’t allow this logic to be used to Kashmir Files because it will be construed as Muslim bashing. One guy pointed out that because no Muslim character was shown in a good light the Muslim bashing angle is actually true. And it doesn’t talk about how many Muslims have died. But then Haider did Army bashing by that argument and Haider also never talked about how many Pandits were killed. Every subjective argument is inherently biased. Also if the movie is from a Kashmiri Pandit pov then why can’t we allow a subjective pov where all the Muslim characters are bad. Isn’t that what freedom of speech is about?
Upper castes get routinely demonized in many movies by Dalit film maker so why not allow for this possibility as well? Also some said people used the movie as a pretext in Ram Navami violence that followed. But Ram Navami violence has been happening even before the movie. And if people somehow took wrong inspiration from the movie then how is it the movie’s fault? This is the same argument that people have been giving for a long time that violent movies are the reason behind the increase in violence. Someone even criticized Asuran for the same thing. But is there any scientific evidence that actually proves this is the case. Correlation doesn’t imply causation.
Now I can feel people being furious at this line of argument and accusing me of being an RSS sympathizer. I am not. I actually don’t follow any kind of political ideology. And I am not saying the movie is a masterpiece and beyond criticism. But there has to be some consistency in how people approach movies. I remember Rana Ayyub who never cared much for logic bashing Family man season 2 for its alleged love jihad subplot. Even though in the show’s universe the subplot felt justified.
P.S: Sorry for the long comment.
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Madan
July 22, 2023
I haven’t seen the movie. But in reference to the discussion on reviewers evaluating a movie purely for its politics, I don’t like that either. But that is surely a very different animal from, um, “Every relationship goes through its Auschwitz”. Like seriously? This is almost clickbait level of movie making.
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brangan
July 22, 2023
KK: Actually, the premise is a kind of extrapolation of the famous “hill of beans” line from CASABLANCA:
“Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”
Basically World War II is raging, and Ingrid Bergman has to understand that that’s far bigger than her relationship issues.
I think LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL was also criticised for trivialising the war, and making it a “game” — but that is kind of the whole point of the film. The father IS trying to make it all seem like a game to his son.
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Vishnu
July 22, 2023
You hit the nail on the head! Couldn’t have put it better than this.
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mvky
July 22, 2023
This is a light hearted film overall and quite an enjoyable film. Jahnvi looks cute, endearing, innocent and acts well too. Varun provides some entertainment. NT treats WW two and related matters with sensitivity. It would have been a hit in theatres too.
The gas chamber scene is highly disturbing.
I think some gujaratis would have taken offence at the way they were portrayed and ridiculed.
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Vishnu
July 22, 2023
In isolation that may very well be a clickbait but within the context of a complicated and incompatible marriage institution, this may suggest horrors of the relationship. The metaphor is attempting that, afterall. It may not work for someone but then it means it’s a bad execution and not an attempt to trivialise a War for it attempts warring a marriage.
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KK
July 22, 2023
Brangan: Actually I am okay with someone trivializing the war. Cause I don’t look for political correctness. Also it might sound selfish but we have all seen some war happening or the other, like Kargil and when it was happening did we actually stop caring about our own little issues because a war is raging. Unless we come from a family of soldier or some such person who’s involved in the war in some way we just got on with our day to day lives. So in a sense we did trivialize the war. So what I look for is the story and performances rather than the messaging. My long rant was about how Indian critics are forgetting a movie should be much than its inherent messages. I would like to know your two cents on that. And like I said I bought into the movie. But thanks for the reference though. I must admit I haven’t seen Casablanca yet.
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Madan
July 22, 2023
Vishnu: “The metaphor is attempting that, afterall. It may not work for someone but then it means it’s a bad execution and not an attempt to trivialise a War for it attempts warring a marriage” – The problem with that was Auschwitz was not a war. It was a concentration camp where Jews were tortured. I am not in the camp that thinks any and every reference to Holocaust should be verboten, but I’d find it more appropriate in a movie like Darlings where the bonkers husband is this close to killing his wife, rather than a dysfunctional relationship which is what the one in the movie is (at least from what I gather from the reviews). Every relationship, by definition, cannot go through its Auschwitz unless every relationship is supposed to end in one-sided domestic violence.
KK: “Also it might sound selfish but we have all seen some war happening or the other, like Kargil and when it was happening did we actually stop caring about our own little issues because a war is raging.” – Likewise, Kargil was a war, Auschwitz was not. Auschwitz is more comparable to the 89-90 massacre and exodus of Pandits or the 1984 Delhi state-sponsored genocide on Sikhs. The problem is the metaphor suggests a lack of awareness of what Auschwitz was about, NOT that a bad marriage cannot be equated to war. After all, the old saying does go, “All is fair in love and war”. I would be completely ok with a Kargil reference. That said, I am pretty sure THAT would have generated much more outrage in the current climate along with strident lectures about soldiers at the border.
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KK
July 22, 2023
Madan: Your point is granted that the metaphor doesn’t extend further and deeper. But let me ask you this. When ISIS did all those terrible stuff to Yazidi women, did we change our daily schedule in some way? So why is the trivialization an issue? That line about Auschwitz I too have a problem with. I guess they compared the horrors of concentration camp with emotional abuse in some way. But barring that it’s a pretty ballsy movie.
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brangan
July 22, 2023
KK:to be fair, the movie doesn’t push the metaphor of what’s happening in Ajju’s life to events in WWII except for a few stretches of dialogue
But that’s all that’s needed. As Ajay journeys from the “lighter” horrors of WW2 to the heavier ones, he confronts his lighter fears (being alone in a strange country, for instance) to his heavier ones (her epilepsy). That’s why the key line of the movie is when he tells his students: “We just read one or two lines about Normandy, and that’s it — but it’s only when you try and imagine it that you realise what really happened.” (I am paraphrasing.)
This is certainly not a perfect movie, and I wish they had omitted the man telling the Auschwitz story etc. But from my experience in Vietnam, I know how confronting the horrors of war can really change your perspective of your life.
Oh well….
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Vishnu
July 22, 2023
Madan : I get what you are implying but only partly. Can we separate those gas chambers and concentration camps from Word War Two? To say that those chambers and camps are different than WW2 is itself a trivialization of the war. And with that metaphor, if one wants it to be really that analogous with those camps then let me restate my stand this way – “The psychological suffocation one feels in a troubled and traumatic relationship finds a loose parallel with Auschwitz in the film.” And trust me in the film Auschwitz is an analogous reference only. But unfortunately, this minor portion is being highlighted far more than the actual parallel the film tries to draw with the war.
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Vishnu
July 22, 2023
Brangan : Why would you like Auschwitz story be omitted? Irrespective of how those portions are being perceived by audiences, a parallel to WW2 without accounting Auschwitz would have made the whole metaphor superficial. And I think Nitish Tiwari mentioned that in the interview with you only that they considered other wars as well but then they had decided to go with WW2 for a very strong reason. We can sense that after watching the film. My point is without Auschwitz, the relationship graph could have found the parallel with any war and use of WW2 would have come across as a gimmick.
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mvky
July 22, 2023
Though the old survivor was telling the story, the camera was mostly focussed on Jahnvi telling it in hindi with expressions and tears and emotions. It was as though she imagined herself as the survivor’s wife.
Daily we read about horrific incidents and we rage, get depressed and feel utterly helpless for days, months, years and there is no respite from this as long as we live. We may try to forget one incident but the very next day we read some other incident and the wound never gets time to heal.
Thats one great performance from Jahnvi. Sridevi would have been proud of her daughter.
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Madan
July 22, 2023
KK: Oh, I am not criticizing the movie in general since I haven’t watched it. I only made the point that the Auschwitz line sounds flat out objectionable even without applying p.c. norms.
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brangan
July 22, 2023
Vishnu: No. I meant the man narrating the story. That felt like overkill, like hammering the point home — especially in a film that is otherwise quite elegant in its writing.
I loved, for instance, the reason Jahnvi stays in the relationship — she has ummeed, she is an optimist. This is never spelt out, but left for us to join the dots. And then to have this ultra-melodramatic Auschwitz story being narrated.
FWIW, I hated the similar opera sequence in DIL CHAHTA HAI. Preity is the “explainer” there, like Janhvi is here. Aamir/Varun are the oblivious ones. That stretch, too, did not work for me.
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Madan
July 22, 2023
” Can we separate those gas chambers and concentration camps from Word War Two? To say that those chambers and camps are different than WW2 is itself a trivialization of the war.” – In historical terms, yes, we absolutely can separate the chambers and camps from WW2 (though that is not how the Allies want us to remember the war!). The camps were set up in 1933 and initially Nazi propaganda even loudly and proudly reported the torture inflicted on Jews in these camps. The reporting went dead thereafter but the Allies knew and did nothing. Neither about the camps nor about the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia. They’ve even helped spread a myth about Czech being won without battle by the Nazis when in fact the Czechs did offer resistance but failed because they received no support from the Allies.
WW2 only began with the invasion of Poland. The division of Poland between the Nazis and the Soviets finally roused the Allies out of the complacent stupor of appeasement. They’d silently tolerated Hitler as the lesser evil between himself and Stalin and an irritating but useful bulwark against communism. The NAP changed the equation and forced Britain and France into action.
In short, for sentimental reasons, it may make sense today to connect Auschwitz with the World War 2 and I would also agree that the Nazis as the defeated side of WW2 are inextricably linked with Auschwitz. But the war proper had nothing to do with Auschwitz but with a tectonic shifting of geo-political plates that finally convinced Britain and France that they’d be next (as France was and Britain nearly was too).
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KK
July 22, 2023
Vishnu: I think Brangan is talking about the old man narrating his story which was very similar to the story of the couple. I also found that a bit on the nose. Because earlier everything was so understated like that Anne Frank portion. So this old man portion stood out like a sore thumb. This is what he meant when he said omitting the Auschwitz story.
MVKY: I also found her performance to be good.
Madan: I also found that portion a bit too sentimental in a complete contrast to the rest of the movie.
Brangan: Okay your explanation makes sense. I initially thought they are going for something like No Man’s Land (the movie that upstaged Lagaan in the oscar race). That’s why I wanted the metaphor to be extended further. Like Vishnu says the psychological suffocation being a parallel for gas chamber.
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KK
July 22, 2023
Madan: Okay I agree the holocaust had nothing to do with world war II. But you can’t talk about Hitler and WWII without mentioning Holocaust. It happened in the same period. And Hitler did both. But you can talk about WWII without talking about the postwar human rights violation by Allied forces in Germany and Japan. I am not talking about the atomic bombs. On a side note what a coincidence that there are two movies released on the same day referring WWII in very different ways.
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Madan
July 22, 2023
“But you can’t talk about Hitler and WWII without mentioning Holocaust.” – Hitler, yes. WWII, no, I stand by my view that you can mention WWII without mentioning Holocaust since it was a sin being gleefully perpetrated by the Nazis long before the Allies finally swung into action. If they want to make it out today like they felt so simpatico for the Jews’ plight that they fought heroically to save them, not taking 6 years to wake up would have made the narrative more plausible.
Also WWII didn’t just affect the Jews but eventually vast swathes of perfectly ‘Aryan’ Europeans. The Jews were simply the first group to bear the full brunt of Nazi brutality and bore it arguably more than any other group. But it is also a fact that had Hitler simply been content to rule Germany and never attempted to expand his frontiers (as Putin more or less was prior to 2022), the world would have turned a blind eye to the concentration camps. Thus, Auschwitz had a LOT to do with the Nazis but nothing to do with the World War itself and was not a cause of it either proximately or remotely.
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Vishnu
July 22, 2023
Ohh.. Got it. I thought you were referring to entire Auschwitz sub plot.. And that Opera portion in Dil Chahta Hai never worked for me as well.. In repeat viewing it becomes almost intolerable..
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Vishnu
July 22, 2023
That’s what I was referring that I got you partly that atrocities against Jews were pre World War 2. What I am trying to say is if you want to read or teach history of WW2, would you consider teaching as complete without Auschwitz episodes! That is the film’s parallel is all about. I am strictly looking at the war through the lenses of the film and not as an observer history.
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Madan
July 22, 2023
“What I am trying to say is if you want to read or teach history of WW2, would you consider teaching as complete without Auschwitz episodes! ” – I think it would be a useful exercise to do so and to instead deep dive into the Nazi regime in more detail, start with how the Stab In the Back myth of WW-1 led to the build up of support for Nazism. There are wonderful documentaries on the Timeline History channel that deal with this.
So I would put it this way. You cannot teach the history of WW-2 without teaching the history of the Nazis and THEREFORE, you cannot teach the history of the Nazis without covering Auschwitz. But there’s an intermediate step. It seems to me – from what Nitesh Tiwary said to BR – that the makers tried to force-fit an Auschwitz metaphor in service of its importance to the WW2 story and ended up stretching the metaphor too far.
I can’t get past this – a bad marriage is more like war whereas brutal domestic violence is what is more like Auschwitz. Even a suffocating relationship does not deny either party agency to leave the relationship and thus liberate themselves. But the Auschwitz victims lacked that agency in a very physical sense while domestic violence victims often perceive a lack of agency and helplessness. Maybe if the makers were cognizant of the intermediate step between Auschwitz through Nazi cruelty to WW2, they would have understood that you can’t credibly compare a dysfunctional relationship to Auschwitz. And since the movie is about a relationship rather than about WW2, I would rather they had indeed not remarked on a parallel between Auschwitz and the relationship and don’t think that would tantamount to an incomplete rendering of WW2 in this context.
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Abhirup
July 22, 2023
“Some viewers are surely going to be repelled by this whole conceit, and they may say that the film reduces World War II to a self-help marriage manual.”
Yes, that is precisely what the film does. Which is why calling it insensitive or crass or even disgusting is to damn it with faint criticism. I am sorry, but the issues plaguing this couple are not by, by any means, the equal of being shot to pieces at Normandy or being gassed to death in Auschwitz. Which is why that line — “Every relationship goes through its own version of Auschwitz” — is beyond repulsive. The fact that it is spoken by a Holocaust survivor (whose real-life counterparts wouldn’t ever utter such nonsense) makes the film even more of a crapfest. I understand that the makers’ knowledge of Holocaust and the WWII does not go beyond what they had read way back in school. That’s how it is with most Indians. But the least they can do is not trivialize these topics. Imagine such trivialization of our own tragedies. Imagine a film where brothers locked in a property dispute take a trip to a colony of Partition refugees and decide, “Division is a terrible thing.” Or a film where a character who is bitter over being forbidden from eating certain items by doctors reads up on the 1943 famine and concludes, “Nah, my life is not so bad after all.” Or a film where a person who has to relocate from one city to another for the sake of his job and is unhappy owing to this learns of the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, and reflects, “They had to leave their homes, belongings and relatives overnight and can never go back. Surely my situation is not as dire.” Rolling your eyes? Good. Because, basically, that’s ‘Bawaal’ for you.
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Madan
July 23, 2023
“Imagine such trivialization of our own tragedies. ….Or a film where a person who has to relocate from one city to another for the sake of his job and is unhappy owing to this learns of the plight of Kashmiri Pandits”
Unfortunately, we don’t even have to imagine. We actually had the super-cringe Me Too Migrant handle trend where privileged middle class people were comparing their ‘struggles’ migrating to the people forced to ‘migrate’ during covid lockdowns. What do we do when insensitivity appears to be baked into our collective psyche?
By the way, welcome back, after eons!
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Madan
July 23, 2023
I am reminded of Big Mouth Mukesh Khanna interrupting his guests on his channel ‘Bheeshm International’, as he compulsively narrates an incident that establishes how he can relate to what the guest is saying. Maybe you can call it ‘over-empathy’ or ‘desi-empathy’. The urge to relate to a situation to show this overwhelming empathy seems to be so great that completely gross parallels are regarded as par for the course.
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faroo
July 23, 2023
Really liked lots of portions of this movie, esp about image building, insecurity etc. The parallels to WWII itself was, for me, meh – because one part of me kept thinking they needed foreign locations and this was a force-fit.
The re-enactments though, including Auschwitz, that felt like cultural appropriation. Even worse it minimizes the actual horrors of those events to mere marital discord.
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brangan
July 23, 2023
Abhiryp: That’s how it is with most Indians.
And that is why this film is made for “most Indians” – not just the 10% who know all about WW2 or the woke people etc.
I ageee totally with the survivor story – and have mentioned it in my review.
But extrapolating one single, badly misjudged line to say “thw whole film is misjudged” is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Because again I am bringing up my own Vietnam example.
Like many people I have no interest in History and ny knowledge of the Vietnam war comes from movies. But that day, crawling through those tunnels (you can barely breathe) made me realise and think about a lot of things. It’s just like Varun says in Normandy. One line in a history book means nothing till you are really there and are able to visualise what really happens.
I am not asking you to like the film at all. But until that Auschwitz portion, it plays its cards quite well — neither overselling Varun’s gradual conversion nor the horrors or WW2. So yeah, except the last 20 minutes or so, the rest of the film worked for me.
This is the most audacious film of the year and I am not going to dismiss the rest of the film because of the bad choices at the end.
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KK
July 23, 2023
Abhirup: I was beginning to think why no one is coming here to bash the movie because it doesn’t conform to politically correct portrayal of WWII, whatever that means.
Brangan: It seems like after JBJ, Saawariya ,Zero etc you have again found yourself in the minority for liking a movie cause as far as I know no other critic has liked the movie.
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Vishnu
July 23, 2023
What we all are doing here is we are putting WW2 and its literal horror first and then comparing how much justification it does to the war with its relationship parallels. But the film does a reverse. It puts the marriage and a loser first and tries to draw parallel between his insecurities and greed with that of the war. So the parallels are strictly contained to a very limited part of the war in a very limited fashion. And I don’t think WW2 was chosen for foreign locations. This leads to a crowdless silent beach of Normandy and not to a happening and fancy foreign beach. You may disagree with the film’s choice of subject but in no way it was done for pure commercial reasons.
Now just to make my point of “Limited Part of The War In a Limited Fashion” bit clearer, consider this sequence – the bags of two passengers get exchanged dye as both carry similarly designed yellow color bags. We get a few lighter moments around it. But in a really moving portion of the film, this bag is compared with a bag in a war museum. A scene before it, we are shown while exchanging actual bags, Ajay was not in his pretentious jovial mood. Then this war museum analogy compounds this melancholy even further. This man of Lucknow whose entire life is nothing but a series of staged lies, is jolted and shattered now that as a teacher the lessons of truth and compassion should be taught by him to his students but he had been too busy to build macho image around him to understand how hollow his life has become. After that slap gate with a student, he plans an escapist trip but to his horror the escapist trip actually pulls him to those dark phases of the history which was always around him in books but he never paid a heed and now when he aimed for the greatest staging of his image he realizes the truth of his life which has been a big big lie all the way.
“Lucknow ke kuyein me rehane wala mendhak jab kuyein ke bahar aata hai to jis pehali haquiqat
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Vishnu
July 23, 2023
“Lucknow ke kuyein me rehane wala mendhak jab kuyein ke bahar aata hai to jis pehali haquiqa se uss ka saamna hota hai vahi uss ki zindagi ke khokale pan ko aaine ki tarah saaf kar deti hai. WW2 se jyada badi aur kon si haquiqat ho sakti thi jo ek hi jhatke me aasaman se dharti ki dhool chata de”
The entire WW2 metaphor is used in a limited manner to bring this point home and not the other way round. It may be a failed attempt for one, but it is not in any way an attempt to trivialse any war. And if we go by this trivialising logic, I am sorry, but no piece of fiction can register reall horrors of war. So in that way, do all literature and cinema around different wars trivialise wars? No.. Some films are interested in highlighting valour and courage in wars, some are interested to bring out the wrath of wars. This film is interested in showing how even a vicarious experience of war stories can alter a person inside out. This is all an attempt here.
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Abhirup
July 23, 2023
Mr. Rangan:
“Most Indians” are also homophobic. So would it be okay if a director makes a movie full of insensitive portrayal of LGBT people, and then say, “Hey, I made this movie for most Indians, not for the 10% that attends Pride parades”? Just because ignorance or insensitivity regarding a subject is widespread in a country, does not mean one should keep catering to that ignorance and insensitivity, right?
And my criticism of this film is by no means restricted to that one line spoken by the old guy. That’s only the nadir. I have a problem with its entire premise — that it uses the horrifying like WWII, and worse, the Holocaust, to highlight and draw parallels with the comparatively miniscule problems of this couple, problems which (as the film itself shows) will go away if they have a few candid conversations (which surely was not the case with those who had to land at Normandy or were interned at concentration camps). I am sorry, but I just cannot stand the idea that it is okay to use tragedies like the Holocaust as sort of fancy backdrop for privileged protagonists (and yes, anyone who can go on extended tours of Europe is previleged) to have “epiphanies” which, frankly, you do not even need to go to Europe to have. I guess my feelings with regard to this movie are the same as those you had regarding the 2012 film ‘The Impossible.’ Quoting from your review: “There’s something unsettling and exploitative about a real-life tragedy being used as wallpaper for a fairly routine genre outing, however well performed, well made. It’s odder that the story seems to focus only on the plight of the whites, with nut-brown locals reduced to nurses and stretcher attendants.” That’s exactly how I felt after watching ‘Bawaal.’
Thanks for sharing your experience in Vietnam. Allow me to say that like the characters in ‘Bawaal’, I have visited Auschwitz. I have met actual Holocaust survivors. I have seen Oskar Schindler’s grave. These were all intensely emotional moments for me. I cried publicly, something I do not usually do. But it is precisely because of those experiences of mine that I despise ‘Bawaal’ all the more, because, as I have said before, I am not okay with using real-life horrors as an exotic setting for what is, at its core, a simple rom-com. I recognize that others (especially those who have no interest in history) may be okay with it. But that does not mean I have to be as well.
“I am not asking you to like the film at all.”
And I am not asking you to condemn it. My respect for you as a critic has never been dependent on us agreeing all the time. You were quite dismissive of Nitesh Tiwari’s previous film, ‘Chhichhore’, which I had thoroughly enjoyed. And I was, and still am, okay with that. I am similarly okay with you liking ‘Bawaal’ and calling it “audacious” even as I think it is the worst film I have seen this year (‘Kisi ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan’ looks Oscar-worthy in comparison). I will continue to read you and recommend you to anyone seriously interested in film criticism. That won’t change, ever.
PS.- I love ‘To be or Not to be’, and enjoyed ‘Jojo Rabbit.’ Those are not PC takes on WWII or Nazism. So my criticism of ‘Bawaal’ has nothing to do with PC-ness. But being irreverent in making a film on real-life tragedy while not trivializing it is a tricky act. The aforementioned films managed it. ‘Bawaal’, in my opinion, didn’t. That’s all. Thanks.
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KK
July 23, 2023
I remember reading a piece on why Kaagaz ke phool failed where it was written that how audience at that time saw the protagonist, a privileged person, being depressed about no particular issue. They thought how this rich guy had everything that most of them didn’t yet he was still sad and that’s why they couldn’t relate. This line of criticism is also very similar to what KJo, Imitiaz ali routinely face what with their movies focusing on the so called first world problems instead of the ACTUAL issues plaguing the country. Basically my point is people want to see bare bones treatment of real life issues in an air conditioned room while munching on popcorn as opposed to an idiosyncratic yet fascinating story that may or may not be grounded in reality (like Tamasha or Rockstar or Saawariya) or even the exploration of various issues plaguing a relationship between two highly privileged individuals (like most of KJo’s or YRF movies). I think Brangan also wrote a piece on Raajneeti, calling it out for its mediocrity as well as the media for highlighting a mediocre movie about supposed real life issues instead of an imperfect yet highly engaging drama like KANK.
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Madan
July 23, 2023
KK: ” Basically my point is people want to see bare bones treatment of real life issues in an air conditioned room while munching on popcorn as opposed to an idiosyncratic yet fascinating story that may or may not be grounded in reality” – That depends, no? The same KJ’s KKHH and K3G were equally designer and hits nevertheless. Even the very conceit of Imtiaz Ali’s JWM is steeped in privilege (who else but the heir to a business empire can just leave everything, knowing he can walk back to his inheritance) but it was a hit. It depends on whether the treatment itself resonates with the audience. But this is a fascinating topic worth discussing in more detail.
So here’s my rundown:
KKP: Painfully slow (for me), otherwise a poignant film. Maybe it was overshadowed by prior knowledge of the real life Guru Dutt issues that seeped into the movie. He had also been warned by both VK Murthy and Waheeda Rehman about the pacing of the movie. In short, it was perhaps a beautiful failure as it is today seen as influential by cinephiles. Albeit, from today’s prism, I don’t feel he regrets enough for his mistake in indulging in an affair and cheating on his wife and maybe it was this self-pitying tone that bothered the audience then too.
Tamasha: Haven’t seen
KANK: Extremely talk and convoluted
ADHM: Ditto. My problem with KJ movies is less the privilege on display and more the over-exposition. The over-exposition then makes it difficult for me to account for things that are not explained (like a cougar poetess rolling in wealth). It’s not that I refuse to use my imagination but when I am constantly being told what the character thinks (and in such psycho-babbly terms as “you are my taakat” at that), I wonder why the director can’t bloody well stretch to explain the other aspects too (and cut out the noisy – and copied – Bulleya song instead). I more or less had these problems with KKHH which was a bloated take on a subject already explored better on Keladi Kanmani. But KKHH worked maybe because of the youthful effervescence of the lead trio and Jatin Lalit’s blockbuster album.
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Madan
July 23, 2023
“It seems like after JBJ, Saawariya ,Zero etc you have again found yourself in the minority for liking a movie cause as far as I know no other critic has liked the movie.” – Also Shikara. The only critic who gave that poignant film its due. It was a given that RW ecosystem would heap calumny on Shikara without even watching it because of who made it but even the leftie reviewers bizarrely let down the film. It’s been a tough time to make politically charged films for a while now (unless the film’s views align completely with the ruling disposition). Not that things were much better previously. A critically acclaimed HKA usually found glorious indifference at the box office.
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Vishnu
July 23, 2023
Madan : The issue with Shikara was its promotional campaign. A couple of days before its release, Vinod Chipra’s interview was there in The Hindu. In the entire
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Vishnu
July 23, 2023
Madan : The issue with Shikara was its promotional campaign. A couple of days before its release, Vinod Chipra’s interview was there in The Hindu. In the entire interview he talked about Kashmiri Pandit’s migration and volatile politics. The tagline of the film went like ‘Untold story of Kashmiri Pandits’. Had that been promoted rightly, like BR mentioned in his review putting people before politics, the film would have reached correct people with correct intent. I quite liked the film but unfortunately in promotions too much was being propagated about its politics while it was about people and their struggle.
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Madan
July 23, 2023
Vishnu: I agree that its promotional campaign was a massive backfire. But that would account for the audience’s reaction. If critics start judging a movie only by its promo campaign, idk what to say. I am glad BR didn’t follow suit. I was aware of the campaign but evaluated the film for what it was.
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KK
July 23, 2023
Madan: I have watched Shikara and I didn’t find it that good. The whole US president angle felt a bit bizarre to me. Also the chemistry between the leads and the performances wasn’t appealing to me either.
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KK
July 23, 2023
Madan: About your other comment about movies being Talky. Why can’t they be? Movies are supposed to be about characters and story. And different directors will have different approaches. I love dialogues. And especially when dialogues are so well written like in ADHM or Tamasha. And Bulleya was copied, really?
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Madan
July 23, 2023
“About your other comment about movies being Talky. Why can’t they be? Movies are supposed to be about characters and story.” – Yes, but movies are also a visual medium so I prefer movies where the director is able to orchestrate the scene to convey something rather than relying solely or mainly on the characters spouting dialogues (in which case, I might as well watch a play). A good example of the kind of film making I prefer is the scene in Aboorva Sagotharargal/Appu Raja where the police show the sketch of the murder suspect to the villains Nagesh and Jaishankar and Nagesh simply stifles a gasp as the suspect’s appearance strongly resembles Inspector Sethupathi whom he had killed. There’s no dialogue where he says, “But this is exactly like Sethupathi” or such. It is implied. And AS, unlike pretty much any KJ movie, trusts the audience to understand this.
I do love great dialogues, goes without saying, but I like energy and wit in dialogue and neither are KJ’s strengths because he is instead trying to explain everything through the dialogues. Now I didn’t make a comment on Tamasha so don’t conflate the two. I only called ADHM talky which it was for me. Very.
As for Bulleya, the lyrical refrain is copied and in addition, the riffs come from Papa Roach’s Last Resort. The melody is original which is a big deal by Pritam standards but it’s still an extremely derived effort and need not have been there as it added nothing to the movie (unlike Channa Mere Aa or the title track).
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KK
July 23, 2023
https://www.missmalini.com/2016/09/22/has-bulleya-been-copied-from-the-last-resort-heres-a-comparison
I am not a music expert. But the above link supposedly disproves your claim. Also consider the bulleya song. Towards the end of song we see RK’s character Ayan remembering Alizeh while being with Saba. All of this is shown in visuals than through dialogues. ADHM dialogues are energetic and witty and same goes for KANK as well. If you dislike KJo’s humor then that’s a separate issue.
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KK
July 23, 2023
And the importance of bulleya is that it’s the song he dedicates to Saba, his muse. Someone who inspired him so much that he sings his heart out. I really liked the song.
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Madan
July 23, 2023
A Miss Malini link? OK, I give up.
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Madan
July 23, 2023
“ADHM dialogues are energetic and witty and same goes for KANK as well. ” – Not to me they aren’t and to you they are, so that’s that. You asked what’s wrong about a film being talky and I gave an explanation, end of the story.
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Prat
July 24, 2023
Great review! It mirrors exactly how I felt about the movie. Jhanvi was surely a surprise. And it’s funny how low our bar is for our heroes, that they need a life lesson from Auschwitz to be a … decent person. The inappropriate comparison with WWII apart, I’m glad they tried something different within the confines of mainstream Hindi films.
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Prat
July 24, 2023
Also, the choice of Europe here is interesting in two ways: that we Indians need European victims to feel the depth of tragedy, as if we don’t place much value on Indian lives. And because it is one of the first major attempts here to interpret foreign history in our own terms, a sort of reverse cultural appropriation – usually it is the western minds that contextualise our history to derive trivial life lessons for themselves.
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Rocky
July 24, 2023
Re.- If this reviewer had his way then the famous Nirma jingle would have gone like ” Juliya, Jubieda, Jassi aur Jaya, Sabki pasand Nirma”
LMAO!!
Vishnu and KK , superb comments on the reviewers. Maza aa gaya.
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Prat
July 27, 2023
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/27/bollywood-film-bawaal-accused-of-trivialising-holocaust-auschwitz-scenes-amazon?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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