How was my experience of watching this movie?
Mind you this post is going to be full of spoilers and if you haven't watched this movie and want to have a good experience, kindly leave this post right away.
First I watched The Tashkent Files to get a basic idea about his files trilogy (Kashmir Files being the second and the upcoming movie The Delhi Files being the penultimate one of this trilogy), and being honest, I liked it very much, it raised genuine questions about how we Indians have been denied the RTI (Right to Information) act from the Independence itself.
The Kashmir Files deals with another lion of our national emblem .i.e Right to Justice (It was Vivek Agnihotri himself who told that each film in the trilogy represents one lion from our national emblem). This film focuses on how the Kashmiri Pandits were denied their basic rights of justice or even their basic rights to live as a respectable citizen of this country. The opening scene of this movies already told me that the road head is going to be a bumpy ride for sure. Technically speaking, the wide angle shots of Kashmir with a darker tone is a contrast to how we have seen Kashmir in many bollywood movies till now, beautiful, snowy, scenic, and mostly a colorful version of the actual place. However this Kashmir is shown to be extremely lifeless and devastated.
"Water Water everywhere
Not a drop to drink"
same goes for this Kashmir,
"Snows and chills everywhere,
Blood and ashes is all I see"
There are many supporting characters of this movie like Commissioner Brahma Dutt (Mithun Chakraborty in a heart aching performance), Inspector Hari Narain (Puneet Issar, Duryodhan from BR Chopra's Mahabharat), Doctor Mahesh Kumar (Prakash Bealwadi, the irritating man you did have remembered from Airlift) and Journalist Vishnu Ram (Atul Shrivastava). All of them are the friends of our leading man Pushkar Nath Pandit (Anupam Kher) who has faced the worst circumstances in life one never even thinks to face even in his worst nightmares. Pushkar Nath's whole family, except himself and his youngest grandson Krishna Pandit (Darshan Kumar) is brutally murdered in this genocide. And there are barely any soft moments in this movie, so this one is definitely not for the faint hearted one.
Analysis
This movie didn't sugarcoated a thing, neither am I sugarcoating anything while conveying my experience to you people. It was a bittersweet experience while watching the movie. From the first scene itself, it was clear that for what I was in for. The performances of each and everyone from the cast is heart touching, especially of Anupam Kher, Bhasha Sumbli, Mithin Chakraborty and Darshan Kumar. Anupam Kher as the simple but righteous Pushkar Nath Pandit is just endearing and gives a heartbreaking performance, but with his character arc in the end, I felt that his character wasn't given justice. Bhasha Sumbli, a relatively new face in the industry does her job perfectly and just because her act in the climax, I would say that she deserves an award. Mithun Chakraborty was one of the biggest superstar of his times, and he proves it why. As the helpless commissioner Brahma Dutt, he litertally made me feel for him. And Darshan Kumar deserves all the praises he can, just for his monologue in the end, although there was a problem in his character arc also and we will come to that later. The antagonists deserve as much praise as the lead cast. Palavi Joshi is a veteran and she literally makes your blood boil with her act as the shrewd and manipulative professor, it's also a way to show how the influence of a morally tarnished and wrong person can have even on the victim itself. Chinmay Mandlekar as Bitta is one of those villains, whom you personally want to murder with your bare hands. It was extremely disturbing to see his acts and hear the dialogues he utters. That's the level of perfection with which he had esayed the role. The supporting actors like Puneet Issar, Prakash Belawadi, Mrinal Kulkarni, Atul Srivastava, all were perfect in their parts Not to forget the child artist Prithviraj Sarnaik (Shiva) who sends chill down your spine with his haunting innocence.
Now coming to the cons, first of all I want to clear that this is no regular mass masala entertainer which should be told as a fairy tale. But the structure of the screenplay is extremely unsuitable I would say. It was not necessary to give a happy ending, but ending the film on such a brutal note as to......(SPOILERS AHEAD)...... showing one of the leads conveying a very important and heart touching monologue which is the only moment that brings some smile to your face and in the end showing the aberrant violence with which his mother and brother were killed and ending the fillm zooming on the gunshot on the head of the child is not something that can be called as a good ending, atleast according to me. Maybe it would be a symbolism of the cruel injustice Kashmiri Pandits have been with since the past 32 years and it continues today as well. But anyways, it was not my cup of tea. Yes, I understand that this is not even 10% of what has actually happened with Kashmiri Pandits, but from a screenplay point of view, it didn't seemed right to me or simple it looked like a case of flawed sructure of the story. Also, there is no quality that from where Pushkar Nath and Krishna got the money and resources to live in Delhi for 26 years (movie is set in 2016) since Krishna was just a student and Pushkar Nath was critically ill ever since they left Kashmir. Also, Krishna who just had meal, YES, LITERALLY A MEAL! with his parent's murderer and got very easily brainwashed by him and then sees Brahma Dutt's files and again changes his mind. So, if Krishna is so much fickle minded, how can he give the speech about Kashmir so confidently? And if Krishna had seen Radhika's photo in Bitta's house, with him (Bitta), then why didn't he just simply exposed her infront of everyone?
On the last word, I would say that although not a masterpiece, Kashmir Files is a veryimportant fim that should be witnessed by every Indian.
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