Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor's 'Bawaal' has come under fire ever since its release owing to the blend of tragedy and holocaust in its narrative. Now, a Jewish organization has written an open letter to Prime Video to take down the movie.
In the film, Janhvi plays an epileptic young woman who faces emotional abuse from her husband, played by Varun. The film takes a unique turn as the couple travels to Holocaust sites in Europe, leading to a shift in their strained relationship.
Dialogues like, “We’re all a little like Hitler, aren’t we?” and “Every relationship goes through their Auschwitz” have been called out by the audience for trivialising the enormity of the horrors of the Holocaust.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), the NGO for the memory of the victims of the Nazi Holocaust, has asked Prime Video to remove the film Bawaal. The streaming giant received an open letter from the SWC Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action, Rabbi Abraham Cooper for the removal of the film from the platform.
The letter read: "Directed by well-known Indian filmmaker Nitesh Tiwari, the film’s storyline which is set in contemporary times, leads to scenes in which the protagonists enter a gas chamber in Auschwitz and are suffocated while wearing striped clothing. Hitler is used as a metaphor in the movie for human greed, with the main protagonist, saying to his wife, ‘We’re all a little like Hitler, aren’t we?’ Auschwitz is not a metaphor. It is the quintessential example of Man’s capacity for Evil. By having the protagonist in this movie declare that ‘Every relationship goes through their Auschwitz,’ Nitesh Tiwari, trivialises and demeans the memory of 6 million murdered Jews and millions of others who suffered at the hands of Hitler’s genocidal regime. If the filmmaker’s goal was to gain PR for their movie by reportedly filming a fantasy sequence at the Nazi death camp, he has succeeded. Amazon Prime (Prime Video) should stop monetising Bawaal by immediately removing this banal trivialisation of the suffering and systematic murder of millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust."
In a recent interview with Pinkvilla, director Nitesh Tiwari responded to the criticism around the film and shared that one can question the creative process, you can question the creatives, but please do not question the intent. The filmmaker had also spoken about his career and pointed out that he faced criticism for all his films, even Dangal.
While some people called it patriarchal and asked how (Aamir Khan’s character) could force his opinion on the girls, a section of netizens also pointed out that Chhichhore was insensitive.
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