It was perhaps a matter of some other era, time and situation, when filmmakers, on low flame, with all the paraphernalia of film-making, prepared a sumptuous dish on the screen in front of you – cinema. The focus was on making the story rich and layered. When a secret ingredient was found in this dish then what can we say… the taste itself became amazing, unique and unimaginable. And this secret ingredient was – politics. And those who decoded these politics in the story of ‘Picchar’ proudly considered themselves ‘insects of cinema’.
Then one day, while doing politics with a flirtatious lover who was relishing the story cooking on slow flame, Deepika Padukone said – ‘Please tell me in short, come straight to the point’. That’s it… then in the era of one liners, the art of storytelling became ‘so outdated’. That lavish dish of political films changed in such a way that like all the dhabas of West Delhi, the same gravy was made the base of every dish by calling it a ‘special ingredient’. Now Bollywood serves it by adding vegetable-chaap-paneer pieces as per requirement, taste and demand.
Yes, if we talk about the aesthetics of showing politics in the picture, then while ‘Article 370’ and ‘Uri’ will sit on one corner, ‘Bastar: The Naxal Story’ will sit on the other corner at one hundred and eighty degrees.
First of all, if the makers have made it for some hidden interest or propaganda, then they have to understand that no one in the world can ever be impressed by a C grade style weird, childish and boring film. And secondly, if there is no such interest in it then it simply means that the makers found sacks full of currency notes on the road, which they have spent on making an entire team’s future bright by teaching them film making. Although the future may not be bright for those making such top class boring films, but the makers deserve to be congratulated for their genuine efforts! Why? so listen…
Look at the recently released ‘Article 370’, the aim of the film was to show the things that happened behind the scenes in a popular political incident. Whereas the claim of ‘The Kashmir Files’ was to show the violence against Kashmiri Pandits. It is a different matter that what is not visible was distorted in the name of what was shown in it. The point is that both the films showed on screen what they claimed to serve in the story.
‘Bastar’ is a very confused film in this matter. At the end of the film you are told that after 2014, Naxalite incidents have reduced by 70%. The Naxalism affected area has now reduced to a very small extent. And due to Naxalites, roads have now reached the areas where it was difficult to build roads and tourism has increased. The bottom line is that the roots of Naxalism have been dug up in the last 10 years. That is, legally you should expect to see this happening in the film, but it does not happen at all. How? Listen to this also…
Where did the story go?
The film starts from Bastar district of Chhattisgarh. The only connection of the film’s story with reality is that the name of the state and district is real. Naxalites kill a person hoisting the tricolor in this village and take his son with them. The amount of interest the director has taken in showing the gruesomeness of this murder, it seemed as if perhaps he wanted to leave Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s ‘Animal’ behind.
After this the story shifts to cop Neerja Madhavan (Ada Sharma) who is fighting the Naxalites in Bastar. Neerja is very aggressive in eliminating Naxalites. He has formed an army of tribals of Bastar named Salwa Judum to fight the Naxalites. So Ratna (Indira Tiwari), the wife of the person who was murdered in the village, joins Salwa Judum.
But then the story shifts to a court case, in which a professor and some social workers are accused of helping Naxalites. Then this case keeps spreading and Salwa starts focusing on declaring Judum illegal. Here in Bastar, 76 CRPF soldiers are killed in a Naxalite attack. There is a leader of Naxalites who has been given the look of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in the film.
In the film, the character of the founder of Salwa Judum is Rajendra Karma (Kishore Kadam), who reminds of real life Congress leader Mahendra Karma. The horrific Naxalite attack on the character is similar to the real life attack on Mahendra Karma. The director has also shown this in a very scary manner.
Amidst all this, Neerja’s operation continues, but just before the climax, she has been sidelined to develop a thrill in the story. And the entire scene of revenge against the Naxalite mastermind focuses on Ratna. At the end of the film, Neerja has been given a chance to deliver a monologue like a Bollywood hero. In this monologue and in her earlier scenes too, Neerja is seen getting angry at not getting support from the political system and is seen repeatedly cursing the leaders and left wing politics.
‘Bastar’ does not tell you anything about the Naxalite movement, nor does it show you the intricacies of the political maneuvers going on regarding the Naxalites. Here in the story, only Neerja Madhavan is the hero and she is single-handedly eliminating the Naxalites, whose count hardly crosses a hundred in all the frames of the film. That means the entire focus is limited to the victims of just one village. After just 15 minutes the film forgets what it wants to show in the story. Because no political action was shown.
The film showed the soldiers fighting Naxalism in such a way that those who actually worked against it on the ground would get hurt if they saw it. If the film ultimately wanted to say that things changed a lot after 2014, then at least it could have shown this happening. But if you expect logic from this movie, then you should feel sorry for yourself first!
Technical Malnutrition
The quality of dubbing is shaky at many places in ‘Bastar’. Basic things like camera work is weaker than average. In any recent film, you will hardly see as many fake sets as are seen in ‘Bastar’. The team of this film can design a course material on how boring the jungle visuals can be.
The lead actress of the film, Ada Sharma, can become the winner in any competition of saying the dialogue as quickly as possible without blinking her eyebrows. Getting such powerful actors like Yashpal Sharma, Shilpa Shukla and Raima Sen to do such a bad job is perhaps the biggest achievement of the makers of ‘Bastar’. The kind of expressions the actors are giving to portray Naxalites in the film, their body language and the kind of make-up… If Naxalites were really like this, then perhaps the country would not have needed to take tension. Because he would create more comedy than fear!
Overall, ‘Bastar’ is a strange film without motivation, without story, without head and feet, made on a sensitive and serious topic like Naxalism. To call it childish would be an insult to all those filmmakers who showed their talent to the world by making their first films on handiwork and mobile phones.