'Bheed' movie review: That long walk of shame

Movie BheedDirector Anubhav SinhaActors Rajkummar Rao Bhumi PednekarUA DramaRating 355There was a point when I was in the habit of asking movie professionals during interviews to tell us exactly why they make films ldquoTo tell storiesrdquo was the commonest replyMore so how did they define a film Now this can have multiple answers Starting with writer Javed Akhtar who once roughly said ldquoa movie is where therersquos a line before the boxoffice counterrdquoWhich is one way to look at it But hardly as clearcut as actor Naseeruddin Shah describing a film to me as simply a story told in images that adequately reflects its times Reflecting the times I guess being the operative wordsAnd thatrsquos Bheed for you right away Itrsquos about what was collectively the most frightening times wersquove all lived through and that lakhs couldnrsquot survive mdash the invasion of COVID19 that earnestly began March 2020 in India Which is reflected in this pic thatrsquos opened in theatres exactly three years afterThat isnrsquot to suggest therersquos anything particularly unique about Bheed How can that be Lockdown is a pandemic filmgenre of its ownPractically everyone with a camera mdash thatrsquos the whole world isnrsquot it mdash has shot something or the other stored into their Corona Files God knows strife produced a lot of public artIndeed the most haunting Indian film Irsquove seen on the subject would be Vaikunth 2022 mdash segment in Amazon Prime Videorsquos lockdown anthology Unpaused Naya Safar 2022 mdash set in a crematorium directedenacted by Nagraj ManjuleBheed is written directed produced even presented by Anubhav Sinha mdashI suppose the last hyphenate is to ensure nobody else gets into trouble for a dissenting reasonable sobering voice that is Sinharsquos alone What sets Bheed apart from other such films is the timing stillAlso ReadExclusive Rajkummar Rao We need a Pathaan but also need a BheedIt isnrsquot just viscerallyartisticallyemotionally responding to what happened when Corona came mdashbut insistently reminding its audiences about what exactly didLest as with everything else people are gaslit enough into believing not much really did Sure everybodyrsquos lost a loved one at least within two degrees of separation This is universalglobal The Indian experience of COVID19 with a bureaucratic decision and its staggering human cost was tragically unique stillWhat with the worldrsquos most draconian lockdown with the shortest headsup mdash decreed from an ivory bungalow of Lutyensrsquo Delhi without any planning for movementrehabilitation of ldquodehadisrdquo dailywage migrantsworkers in big cities desperate to head to their homesvillageshellipWe donrsquot know a global equivalent Maybe from that distance of decisionmaking India does feel like an anonymous crowd Bheed basically makes people relive those horrors By which I mean people in my posh multiplex who didnrsquot have to hit the street grazing for food and temporary shelterAnd thatrsquos the reason public memories are deemed short It depends on which public and what event Well you could also watch Vinod Kaprirsquos 1232 Kms on Hotstar Disney where the director along with an assistant follows a bunch of migrants on the road from Ghaziabad to Saharsa in Bihar But thatrsquos a plain documentaryBheed foregrounds instead a series of wellreported events into a singular narrative Right from the opening sequence of labourers and their families run over by a train mdash Irsquom 100 per cent certain you havenrsquot wiped off your brain that infamous Aurangabad picture of lsquorotis on the railway trackrsquoOr similar anecdotes of migrants found hiding inside cementmixer trucks getting bathed like animals with sanitisers through water cannons getting bashed up by the policehellipTheyrsquore all here in this Black amp White film that is set in one checkpoint over one dark day at the border of a state thatrsquos been sealed while hundredsthousands are stranded waiting for whorsquoll take the call to finally let them inAs an audience you do feel the filmmakers value your concerns as much as your time and attention You engage with the picture throughout even with humour and romance on occasionMost of it has to do with the phenomenal actors playing the main parts to nearperfection Rajkummar Rao as the conscientious cop Ashutosh Rana and Aditya Shrivastav as his senior and junior colleagues Bhumi Pednekar as his girlfriend Dia Mirza and Pankaj Kapoor for passengers stranded on the streethellipI mean just look at that lineup Surely theyrsquove signed up for this lowbudget middlebrow ldquohighcontentrdquo pic as it were for Sinha alone As a sincere filmmaker with a polemical bent of sorts since Mulk Sinha has devised a very direct way of saying it as he sees it In a manner that might appear too verbose But itrsquos probably essential when you arenrsquot preaching to the choirHe also understands that caste is the key to unlocking India as it exists mdash lockdown or not And that religious hatred is the other virus You see Bheed expectedly delve into both making a point about how ldquojustice is delivered by the powerful mdash if it was delivered by the powerless it would be a different kind of justicerdquoHence you find no criticism of the Indian government by name in the film Irsquom sure it was there And that it was expunged by the governmentrsquos censors Whatrsquos left is right in front of you mdash an important record of our times Through an ldquoempathy generating machinerdquo which is how film critic Roger Ebert best described a film as

'Bheed' movie review: That long walk of shame

Movie: Bheed
Director: Anubhav Sinha
Actors: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar
U/A: Drama
Rating: 3.5/5

Trending Stories

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

Home / Entertainment / Bollywood News / Article / 'Bheed' movie review: That long walk of shame

'Bheed' movie review: That long walk of shame

Movie: BheedDirector: Anubhav SinhaActors: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi PednekarU/A: Drama Rating: 3.5/5

Trending Stories

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

Movie: Bheed
Director: Anubhav Sinha
Actors: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar
U/A: Drama
Rating: 3.5/5