The makes of Bawaal are under fire for using Hitler and the Holocaust tragedy as metaphor in the film. A jewish organisation has now written to Amazon Prime, demanding removal of the film from the streaming platform.
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After facing criticism back home, Nitesh Tiwari’s film ‘Bawaal’ seems to have created a stir in the West. The film using Hitler and the Holocaust as metaphors for human greed and problems in relationships has irked a Jewish organisation. So much so that it has written to Amazon Prime Video, seeking the removal of the film from the streaming platform.
In a long note, the organisation has called the story of Bawaal problematic and has called out the makers for ‘trivialising’ the biggest tragedy in the world. The note requests Prime to ‘stop monetising’ the film which belittles the ‘sufferings’ of millions of Jews who were murdered during the Nazi Holocaust.
“Hitler is Used as a Metaphor For Human Greed”
The organisation named ‘Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC)’ is a human rights NGO working for the victims of the Holocaust. In their open letter, they slammed Nitesh Tiwari and the entire team of the film for using Hitler as a metaphor for ‘human greed’.
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A part of their note 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’?”
“Bawaal Trivialises Auschwitz”
Highlighting that ‘Auschwitz is not a metaphor’, they further explained how it is simply insensitive to draw parallels with the story of Jews being murdered and the victims of Hitler’s regime. “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,” they said.
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The letter also questioned the intention of the makers and asked why did they use the place of horror – the Nazi death camp – to ‘fantasize’ the relationship of their protagonists. It said, “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.”
Bawaal released on Prime last Friday and received mixed reviews from the audience. Many criticised particular scenes in the film in which Janhvi’s character Nisha equates the sufferings of people in Auschwitz with the problems in her marriage as she says, “Every relationship goes through their Auschwitz (sic).”
Varun Dhawan Defends Bawaal
While the criticism grows, the film’s team has defended these scenes and the metaphors. In an interview with Pinkvilla, Varun dismissed the criticism by saying people create a selective outrage because it’s a Hindi film. He referred to the controversial Bhagavad Gita scene in Oppenheimer and said people ‘are okay with that’. He said, ” I know people have got very triggered after watching a small scene in a brilliant film, recently released.
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It’s a scene that’s important to our culture and our country. But that’s okay for you. You don’t feel they should be more sensitive to you? So where does your criticism go then?” The statement he made was pretty ignorant considering there’s been a lot of chatter around the contentious sex scene in the Cillian Murphy starrer. So much so that a section of the audience even demanded the boycott of Oppenheimer on social media and many campaigns ran against the film, which hasn’t still happened in the case of Varun’s film.
