Unanimously positive reviews for Kashmir files

[tennisluvrredux]

Unfortunately not playing anywhere locally. 

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The Kashmir Files: A Review

The Kashmir files needs to be viewed more by non-Kashmiri sections of the society in order to know the real facts about Kashmir and in this regard, the subtitles in English in the film will greatly help them to understand the subject well

Posted on Mar 09, 2022 | Author ASHWANI KUMAR CHRUNGOO

 FRAGRANCE OF IDEAS

The much awaited Bollywood production, The Kashmir Files, was premiered in India on 4th March 2022. A selected gathering watched it in the multiplex hall at Wave Mall, Narwal Bye pass, Jammu. The cross section gathering of the Jammu city on the occasion included political leaders, social activists, thinkers, writers, intellectuals, senior current and retired civil and police officers of Jammu and Kashmir besides the film makers and the cast of the film. The selected local media representatives were also present on the occasion. The film is due to be released for public viewing on 11th March 2022,  globally.

It is a Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri production, known for the film 'The Tashkent Files' directed by him a few years back. The Kashmir Files has a very notable cast that includes the Bollywood & small screen big names like, Mithun Chakravarty, Anupam Kher, Pallavi Joshi, Puneet Issar, Mrinal Dev Kulkarni, Atul Shrivastva and Prakash Belawadi. Besides them there are a number of budding artists in the film who have made an indelible mark. They comprise mainly Bhasha Sumbli, Darshan Kumar and Chinmay Mandlekar who verily have justified their role given to them by their sterling performances.

The film is surely beyond the regular Bollywood film-formula, based upon a story, and mostly a love-story. Infact the film has not been based upon any typical conventional plot. Its story is explicitly based upon video interviews of the first generation victims of the Kashmiri Pandit community in 1990. That provides indeed the blend of authenticity to the content and flow of the film. Since Kashmir and Kashmiri Pandit is a very complex issue for anyone in the world, so there might be possibility of some loopholes here or there in the picture in areas of research and development. In order to overcome those shortcomings, the film maker has wisely avoided certain aspects that could have invited undue criticism and controversy.

Main focus of the film is on the following four key dimensions: failures of the government and administration to tackle the situation when terrorism engulfed Kashmir in 1989-90, tacit connivance of political leadership with the terror module in Kashmir, displacement of the Kashmiri Pandit community, and deep nexus of liberal-secular media and intellectual class with the terrorist regime in Kashmir aimed at to create a false political narrative to keep the truth about Kashmir under the carpet.

The film has a symbolisation-recipe based narration and presentation throughout. The family of Pushkar Nath Pandit (Anupam Kher) represents a common Kashmiri Pandit victim family while Brahm Dutt IAS (Mithun Chakravarti) and DGP Hari Narain (Puneet Issar) symbolise the crippled and helpless civil and police administration of the then state of Jammu and Kashmir. Likewise, Prof. Radhika Menon (Pallavi Joshi) represents liberal-left-secular coterie of India and Vishnu Ram (Atul Shrivasta) aptly acts for the then sold-out media. Dr. Mahesh Kumar's (Prakash Belawadi) role brings forth one of the cruelest modus operandi of the Kashmiri terrorists in medical field.

Sharda Pandit's (Bhasha Sumbli) character symbolises the Kashmiri Pandit womanhood role before, during and after the displacement of KPs besides their pain and resilience both; and Forooq Malik Bitta (Chinmay Mandlekar) and Afzal (Saurav Verma) echoe terror against Pandits and jehad against India. Krishna Pandit (Darshan Kumar) is the third generation victim of terrorism against the Pandits who has neither seen nor been told about the actual situation leading to their displacement from Kashmir. He is oblivious of the realities of the past and is overwhelmed by the liberal and left lobby's ideological narratives till he comes into terms with his unforgettable past of thousands of years of Kashmir including his family being among the first victims of terrorism in Kashmir. He consequently emerges as a hope of Kashmir for future, once he connects himself with the truthful history and real narrative about Kashmir.

The theme of the film revolves around two main narratives, i.e. continuous and consistent failure of the governments and administration to give justice to the Pandit community in and outside the Kashmir valley over the last more than three decades and attempts aimed at to mislead the nation about the real intent of Kashmiri Pandits. The film has a very powerful message for the nation which Pushkar Nath Pandit delivers through his dialogues on a phone call.......i.e, “in case Kashmir is allowed to go the way it has been, it will create more such Kashmirs throughout the length and breadth of India". And his prediction in the reel life comes almost true in the real life.

The Kashmir Files is not a compromise formula, based upon the oft-repeated phrase, 'forget and forgive'.  It pinpoints in a very subtle way, without creating any sort of bad blood, the role of individuals and institutions, friends and neighbours, communities and organisations that contributed to the death and destruction in Kashmir. It has also brought into focus the wishes of the Pandit community to abrogate Article 370 believing that it could solve its long pending problems including their resettlement again in Kashmir.

The atrocities committed against minorities after 1990 have also found their place in the film and have a very strong import to convey. Bollywood has a general temptation to bring in sensationalism in films to play its part which this production has generally avoided barring a couple of avoidable scenes. Use of long duration frames generally brings in an element of boredom and such frames could have been broken into two or three as would be feasible.

Documentation has a tremendous impact on events of our life and this fact has been well endorsed and recognized in the film. Though focused overwhelmingly on a humanitarian angle yet the picture conveys very pertinent socio-political message. Conversion of hard-core terrorists and terror planners into political class and social influencers in Kashmir valley have been depicted in a very professional way. The moral of the story includes an important note that the facts of history can't be forgotten. They need to be remembered in order to ensure that the mistakes of the past aren't repeated in future.

 

 The Kashmir files needs to be viewed more by non-Kashmiri sections of the society in order to know the real facts about Kashmir and in this regard, the subtitles in English in the film will greatly help them to understand the subject well. The film has a very positive message in the end. The film maker puts the onus and responsibility of taking the positive aspects of Kashmir to the world upon the younger generations of Kashmir and has a great belief in them. Truly so, this picture is not an end of the saga but it opens vistas for new expectations and opportunities regarding Kashmir. There is an imperative need to carry the thread of the film forward for the betterment of Kashmir.

The right intent and hard labour in terms of The Kashmir Files manifest the golden words of Noble laureate, Alexander Solzehnistin, in essence: "In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise again a thousand fold in future. When we neither punish nor reproach the evil doers, we are ripping the foundations of justice of which no trace will be left for our future generations for protection against evil.”

 

[tennisluvrredux]

Unembellished Truth’: A Kashmiri Pandit’s Take on ‘The Kashmir Files’

The movie shows that the Indian audience has matured, that it wants authentic and not saccharine stories.

RAKESH K KAUL

Published: 07 Mar 2022, 6:27 PM IST

MOVIE REVIEWS

5 min read

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“Spread my ashes in my lost home in Kashmir,” Anupam Kher, who plays the internally displaced Pushkarnath Pandit, says on his deathbed to his grandson, Krishna, a college student. And thus begins the protagonist’s odyssey into the most vehemently denied truth of independent India.

The door to the Kashmir ‘matrix’ is opened for Krishna by Professor Radhika Menon (played by Pallavi Joshi), a most lethal groomer. She wants Krishna to run for the post of university student association president so that he can support the calls of Kashmiri separatists. Having a Kashmiri Pandit boy speaking about his trip to attend the cremation of his grandfather and, at the same time, being a voice of ‘blameless’ terrorists would be a coup for Menon’s crowd.

The Kashmir 'Matrix'

Pushkarnath had wanted his four old friends to be present at his funeral ceremony. Thirty years after Pushkarnath’s exodus, they reassemble – DGP Hari Narain, Journalist Vishnu Ram and Doctor Mahesh, at Retd. Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir Brahma Dutt’s (played by Mithun Chakraborty) house. Together, they represent the various arms of the Indian state. As their conversation stretches late into the night, Krishna discovers that their role as protectors was limited to serving the ‘blue pill’ (a concept made popular by the 1999 film Matrix; while a red pill symbolises critical thinking, a blue pill allows one to stay content in ignorance) to the Indian inhabitants of the Kashmir ‘matrix’.

Also Read

How, 31 Yrs Ago, Kashmiri Pandits Became Refugees in Their Country

Bereft of justice for Kashmiri Pandits’ killings, tormented Pushkarnath’s only protection comes from dementia, which grants him the boon that he is the sole carrier of truth, albeit with the curse that nobody cares for the ravings of a Kashmiri Pandit lunatic. Anupam Kher has given a gripping performance that shows that the actor is at the top of his game.

But revelation comes from Brahma Dutt, who emerges as Morpheus to Krishna, who looks like Neo. It is Brahma who offers the red pill to Krishna in the form of The Kashmir Files. As a shocked Krishna peruses the hidden documents, the truth comes gushing out. He learns a slew of horrifying things – his mother was forced to eat his murdered father’s blood-stained rice, and the terrorist who had denied all culpability had raped and sawed his mother in half, and then killed his brother and 23 Kashmiri Pandits.

The ‘red pill’ is life-altering, and the grand finale shows the son spiritually returning home to Kashmir. If there is one weakness in the movie, it is that this return is preachy and telling, as opposed to organic.

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The Story of Haider

All grand evil starts with great conviction. The Kashmir Files will re-ignite the debates that have bedevilled India since its birth. It forces us to question India’s self-destructive relationship with Pakistan, the unstable tolerance between Hindus and Muslims, the failure of the Indian State in protecting and granting justice for the rarest of crimes and the sordid contribution of Indian media towards informed Indian polity.

An earlier movie, Haider, went on to garnish great support from the masses, including from sections of separatists. Haider is a Kashmiri Muslim young man who is also searching for answers for his missing father in the Kashmir matrix. Haider was positioned as an adaptation of Hamlet by the Indian media and the intelligentsia. Its grand finale, unsettlingly, showed a war dance at the holy temple of Martand.

Also Read

‘We, Kashmiri Muslims, Must Stick Our Necks Out To Protect Hindus & Sikhs’

But The Kashmir Files shows that there is no confusion in the minds of the sword-wielding, gun-toting terrorists. There is no Hamlet in Kashmir. The first Haider of Kashmir was the oldest son of Kota Rani and Rinchina, whose was a marriage between a Buddhist convert to Islam and a Hindu. But Haider was killed by Shah Mir when he murdered Kota Rani, and Hindu rule in Kashmir was replaced by Islamic rule. The true story of the real Haider seldom finds mention in the public discourse, as with the other truths of Kashmir.

Based on exhaustive research and direct interviews with victims and their families, The Kashmir Files is a fictive reality at its best. Director Vivek Agnihotri takes no prisoners. His camera does not hide man’s ugliness behind nature’s beauty in Kashmir.

The portrayal of the Dal Lake in a scene is mesmerisingly minimalistic. It takes an extraordinary level of courage to tackle the subject of the Kashmiri Pandit genocide, and Vivek Agnihotri has handled that challenge well, without taking the easy way out.

The Killing of Sharda and the Butchering of Kashmir

For the Kashmiri Pandit community, the movie gives hope for justice. The global Kashmiri Pandit community’s support for the movie over the past two years has found a faithful and honest expression, without any whitewashing.

But ultimately, it is the depiction of their way of life that will hearten the Kashmiri Pandits the most. This way of life is portrayed movingly by Bhasha Sumbli as Krishna’s young mother, Sharda. She is the invisible thread of love that ties everyone in the movie.

As the daughter of her schoolteacher father, the gracious hostess serving Kashmiri Pandit food to his four friends, the mother walking her children to school or protecting them in the harsh refugee tent, or as a woman facing the brainwashed terrorist, Bitta – or the repulsive maulvi who asks her to convert and become his wife – she is the ultimate Maej Mother Kashmir.

Just before the terrorist killed her, Sharda cries to her son, “Run, Shiva, run.” But Shiva is frozen in fear, and they shoot him in cold blood. He becomes one of the 23 other Kashmiri Pandits who were killed ruthlessly. His young eyes are unable to comprehend how his grandfather’s student could commit such horror, how his neighbour could turn a traitor, how his blameless family could become a victim. The entire audience was sobbing as they gazed into Shiva’s unforgettable eyes, played poignantly by a young Kashmiri Muslim boy.

But the Kashmiri Pandits did run – they ran away from an evil so great that would put even the shaitan to shame. The killing of Sharda was symbolic of the butchering of Kashmir and underlines all that the Pandits suffered in their earlier genocides.

Also Read

31 Yrs of Exile: A Kashmiri Pandit Clinging on to the Idea of Home

The Kashmir Files is a commendable movie because it brings to the fore one of the greatest shames of modern India. In the telling, it strengthens India. For Bollywood, the movie rightly demonstrates that the Indian audience has matured, that they want authenticity and unembellished truth, as opposed to saccharine stories.

(Rakesh Kaul is the author of the bestseller ‘The Last Queen of Kashmir’ first published by Harper Collins, and the critically acclaimed ‘Dawn the Warrior Princess of Kashmir’ published by Penguin India. This is an independent review and the views expressed are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

[Android_Halwa]

https://www.news18.com/news/movies/the-kashmir-files-crying-audience-members-hug-vivek-agnihotri-darshan-kumar-at-screening-4865591.html

This movie is generating good interest. Positive reviews vunayi...I have a colleague who is a "Bhat", a second generation pandit whose family was kicked out of Pahalgam. Planning to go to the movie with him...

[naughty15]

Is it on ott?

[Spartan]

16 minutes ago, naughty15 said:

Is it on ott?

netflix

[tennisluvrredux]

9 minutes ago, Spartan said:

netflix

Enti already ochesinda? 

[Spartan]

3 minutes ago, tennisluvrredux said:

Enti already ochesinda? 

nope..but they will pick up if director can omit some scenes..ani annaru appatlo.

director dont want to budge..so desi ott ki iche chances unnai.

[summer27]

gp