New Delhi: After being panned by critics in India and abroad, Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor starrer Bawaal is now under the scanner of Jewish human rights organisations —with demands for the film’s removal from Amazon Prime Video. In a letter to the OTT platform, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights NGO, said it “trivialises” Nazi atrocities and “demeans the memories of 6 million murdered Jews”.
The dialogue that has ignited maximum fury is delivered by a haggard Jahnvi Kapoor — “Every relationship goes through its own Auschwitz.” The line also features prominently in Bawaal’s trailer.
The parallels don’t stop there. The protagonists visit Auschwitz, as part of a European sojourn centred around World War 2 locations. Dhawan’s character, Ajay Dixit, is a history teacher who wants his teaching to be imbued with ‘authentic’ experiences. His wife travels with him, and the war and sights of Nazi atrocities become the backdrop against which their marriage is revived.
The concentration camp is reimagined in black and white, accompanied by generic visuals and a pithy narration by Dhawan, who spouts Auschwitz facts while bringing in what is supposed to be perspective. “The suffering of our entire lives isn’t equivalent to a single day of theirs,” he says, as the on-screen couple stare glassy-eyed into a collection of suitcases which once contained possessions confiscated by Nazi guards.
The entire experience is framed as life-affirming for the couple — ridding them of their petty problems, one of which is Dhawan’s refusal to accept his wife’s epilepsy because it would taint his image. Hitler is also treated like a run-of-the-mill morally ambivalent chap, as opposed to a dictator responsible for millions of deaths. “We’re all a little like Hitler, aren’t we?” Dhawan’s Ajay Dixit tells his wife.
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Staunch defence
Nitesh Tiwari, the film’s director, in an interview with Pinkvilla, said that the Auschwitz scenes have been depicted as per his wishes, but he is “disappointed by the way some people have comprehended them,” — which is by believing the director is conflating the barbarity of the Holocaust with a couple’s unhappy marriage.
“Are they being insensitive about it? [the visuals]. No, they are moved to tears by it,” said Tiwari, staunchly defending the scenes. Yet, there is also nonchalance in the film. Upon exiting the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam — Dhawan’s character poses a question to his wife, who responds by asking why he’s being philosophical all of a sudden. “Anne Frank ke ghar se nikalne ke baad thodi philosophy toh banti he”(I just visited Anne Frank’s house)
In the letter directed to Amazon Prime Video, Rabbi Abraham Cooper said: “Auschwitz is not a metaphor. It is the quintessential example of Man’s capacity for Evil.”
Prior to the letter, Dhawan questioned why English films weren’t subject to the same standard, indirectly alluding to Oppenheimer’s Bhagwad Gita scene. Kapoor said she had shown the film to an Israeli professor who was moved by the film.
Criticism and controversy aside, Bawaal amassed 6 million views in the first week of its release.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)