First things first. Vivek Agnihotri’s The Bengal Files is a powerful cinematic work. Not Hindu, not Muslim, it is just high-powered cinema with moments that are aglow with cinematic energy. This is not an easy film to watch. Like life, it is brutal and unsparing, drawing much-needed attention to what is clearly an ignored but essential episode of Indian history, the one that the history books forgot to mention, maybe because children in our country are spoonfed the Disney version of harsh reality. We don’t want them to grow up with the wrong values, do we?
Agnihotri’s film is hard to look away from even as its relentless brutality—at times bordering on torturousness — begins to register as the quintessential core of our existence. For centuries, we have been fed an over-sweetened version of history’s mysteries.
Vivek Agnihotri snatches the comforter from our mouths, and tells it like it is.
There is no doubt about the historical accuracy of the communal carnage (in reverse) in Bengal when Direct Action Day on 16 August 1946 became the occasion for the most massive genocide of Hindus…and why should we shy away from looking at the Hindus as victims of communal carnage?
The film moves in unexpected waves, creating arresting ripples across time. The narrative moves in two time zones: one before the great divide known as the Partition and the other in contemporary times. The only link between them is one genocide survivor.
What Agnihotri tells us with persuasive authority is that nothing has changed as far as politicians and their games of communal divide are concerned.
Someone says at one point, “A bunch of men around a table decided to divide India into two. Nobody asked the people of India if they wanted the Partition.”
The writing is sharp, rigorous, and constantly probing the wounds of history. Are the lead players and the game changers of our country’s flight from the bloody Partition to contemporary times, really deserving of their place as architects of modern India?
This questions keeps popping up all through the remarkably constructed film, so well shot by cinematographer Attar Singh Saini, every frame feels vital, implosive. Vivek Agnihotri’s cinematic acumen has amplified manifold since he last directed the tepid Vaccine War.
The Bengal Files is vibrant and combustible, although some of the more dramatic interludes tend to overstay their welcome. But some of the performances carry the narrative to its triumphant finish. The underrated Darshan Kumar, an Agnihotri regular, is brilliant as a young Kashmiri Pandit cop grappling with his ghosts from the past and ghouls in the present. His monologue about the communal identity of Independent India is a revelation.
Pallavi Joshi and Simrat Kaur play the young and old versions of the same character, though their connectivity is not visually convincing. Pallavi Joshi brings a tragic ethos to her part as a woman who has chosen to forget her traumatic past.
Eklavya Sood is charming as a young, intrepid Sikh from the past who believes tears should be wiped by the one who weeps, not others. Rajesh Khera has a lucid monologue on why Muslims are different from Hindus. It had old Gandhi (Anupam Kher) stumped as much as we. Gandhi, by the way, advises girls to avoid communal violence by committing suicide. No comment needed.
Saswata Chatterjee, as a communal politician, is terrific, especially in a deftly written sequence where we see him assume the role of a gracious householder. The progression and momentum of that sequence from cultured to malevolent shows the workings of a brilliant mind.
Do not underestimate Vivek Agnihotri. Don’t dismiss him as a propagandist. He is an expert storyteller who knows exactly where to punctuate and where to let go. I was fairly surprised by how well the untold story from a shameful slice of our history is told here. You may not agree with what The Bengal Files has to say. Or rather what Bengal Files has to say may not agree with you. But you can’t afford to turn away from what this film has to say.
