Sometimes a film can catch you by surprise. Each time for a different reason.
In 1974, a small film called Gupt Gyan on sex education showed the birth of a baby and became a surprise hit.
In 1975, a little-known Jai Santoshi Maa caught the religious fervour of the audience and made big money for everybody connected with the film.
Sometimes, it’s the mood of the nation that impacts the collections.
Uri: The Surgical Strike was a well-made film that came in January 2019 when elections were around the corner. National pride was on the rise and the audience was filled with josh.
In April 2019, most critics and trade pundits ran down The Tashkent Files. The film was made on a shoe-string budget of approximately 5 crore rupees and grossed more than 20 crore. Today, the same trade sheepishly calls The Tashkent Files a sleeper hit. But no, it wasn’t. It was a good film that deserved to do well and the trade hadn’t read the mood of the nation. Lehren.com was perhaps the only site that had assessed it correctly. We had called it a gripping political thriller which raised uncomfortable questions about the mysterious death of Lal Bahadur Shastri. Giving it a 3.5* rating, we had said, “Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri corrects the injustice done to Lal Bahadur Shastri. The Tashkent Files takes Indian cinema a notch up. It will appeal to the thinking elite.”
Today, Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri’s new film The Kashmir Files hits the right sur, it gets the tone right on many counts.
First, the story.
It’s so stark that it almost seems unbelievable.
If you were told that neighbours and students had turned into killers and that these terrorists had murdered a man, mixed his blood with rice and fed it to his wife, you’d term it a cinematic exaggeration. If you were told that the wife was sawed into pieces in front of her young son, that entire families were gunned down, that children and infants were mercilessly killed, you wouldn’t believe it. If you were told that in a bid to change the demographics of a state, Hindus were told to either convert, flee their homes or die, you’d called it Islamophobia.
But it is the true story of what happened in Kashmir in 1990. Only, nobody told you that story. Nobody documented it.
On the contrary, the leaders of the day and a complicit media went out of their way to cover up the genocide of the Kashmiri Pandit who was made to languish as a refugee in his own country for more than three decades. Nobody told you about the filthy refugee camps or the fact that despite all this, no Kashmiri Pandit ever picked up a gun and became a terrorist.
Must Watch: Audience In Tears After Watching ‘The Kashmir Files’ In Theatre
Vivek Agnihotri was adamant that he would release his film only in the theatres and the stars are in his favour because theatres have opened up and run to 100 pc capacity today. And states like Madhya Pradesh and Haryana have given it a tax exemption certificate.
He’s lucky that there are no other cinematic distractions in the theatres today. His opponent, a big budget, Rs 300 crore film called Radhe Shyam is too weak to entice the audience.
Most of all, if cinema is about the audience wanting to hear a story that hasn’t been told before, The Kashmir Files is that story.
Yes, filmmaker Ashoke Pandit did try to tell the story of the rape and genocide of the Kashmiri Pandit in his film Sheen. But in 2004 the nation was deaf.
The mood of the nation has changed since then.
The mood of the nation is to hear a story that’s been covered up for over 30 years.
The nation wants to hear the truth.
The mood of the nation is to hear the story of The Kashmir Files.
Also Read: Kapil Sharma Breaks Silence On Accusation Of Not Promoting ‘The Kashmir Files’