STORY
During the coronavirus pandemic, the government ordered nationwide lockdowns including checkpoints at the borders. Inspector Surya Kumar Singh Tikas is tasked to control one of the checkpoints but thousands of travelers get stuck on that border because they are not allowed to cross. The consequences are heavy. The impatience leads to frustration and people begin to quarrel, blame, and protest.
REVIEW
I am not sure if the film “Bheed” is based on a true geographical event but if I assume that it is fictional, then the incidents in this fictional event represents one of the million stories that occurred in India, and one of the billion stories in the world. Bheed plays at least five different stories in the same parallel. Due to this reason, the growth of the characters are challenging within two hours of the screentime. Moreover, Bheed has another challenge that the screenplay must not exhaust the viewers because almost an entire film is shot on the checkpoint.
Although the film didn’t do well at the box-office because it was understandable that the audience do not wish to spend the time on a severe depression that recently haunted almost every one in the world. But frankly speaking, it is an absurd reason if I consider that’s the case. Bheed, in its full potential, served the purpose. The dramatization of tension building was remarkable, the panic in the crowd was impressively alarming, and the emotions were rightly despair.
BLACK AND WHITE
The one aspect that I found very impressive about Bheed is that the director Anubhav Sinha chose to make this film black and white. As an observer, there can be two reasons. One is that the migration in the film will heavily remind you of the partition era. Second, the colorless theme can represent the national tragedy. Such creative aesthetics indicate that the filmmaker is serious about conveying a message to the audience. And I like that spirit when the film-making artistry is taken too serious.
A POTENTIAL BEST SCENE
There is a scene where a sudden noise among the crowd erupts and Inspector Tikas has to run to check what happened and it is the police that sanitizes people by showering them. I wish if I was Anubhav’s assistant so I would have suggested him to make that a one-shot scene from Tikas’ angle running the entire route of the noisy crowd until that mark of sanitizing them. I know that could have been a very difficult shooting but that is the beauty. What’s the fun if the director has to shot the film plain and simple. My suggested shot would have been the best Bollywood scene of the year 2023.
THE DAUGHTER
I think the best of all stories was the hopeless cycle riding of a young daughter and drunk father. Their survival was not imminent but were not giving up. It was strange that only one car spotted them riding towards a different route. And this was followed by that car following them until a very moving scene caught our attention when the driver of the car refused to obey his madam and helped them cross the route. This was an important message to the audience coming from the global disaster. On such a cruel planet, the natural disasters are the only certain situations where strangers help each other out.
THE TROUBLEMAKER
But then there are circumstances where people do not allow helping each other. Balram Trivedi is one such character who provoked the harmony twice. When the Muslims aided the Hindus with food, Balram snatched all the packets and returned. It was too late to realize and regret that he was wrong and then the packets were distributed somewhere. When he couldn’t borrow the time of feeding them by not dropping his ego, he chose desperate violence of invading the mall nearby which was illegal and unacceptable. Had he allowed the Muslim aid, the circumstances would have not gone worse.
CLOSING REMARKS
The commercial failure of Bheed gives a wrong reflection on the choices of the audience. Because the film had technical brilliance in direction, story, screenplay, cinematography, and editing. The dialogues, the major performances especially of Rajkummar Rao as Tikas and Pankaj Kapur as Balram, and even the closing in the final 20 minutes were impressive. So forget the box-office and do yourself a favor, watch Bheed on Netflix.
Bheed successfully shows how the pandemic still cannot defeat the caste system, the religious conflicts, and the prejudices. People still find reasons to raise hatred and squabble by differentiating. Perhaps, the humans fighting over stupid reasons is a bigger pandemic than the pandemic.
RATING: 8.2/10
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TIKTOK
Sami Naik | Film Critic 