Bawaal fails to impress; viewers find Auschwitz comparison distasteful

Bollywood has imagined and reinvented or churned love in a 100 different ways. Ishq kameena ( love is a scoundrel), ishq risky ( love is risky), ishq anokha (love is unique) and whatnot. Being tone deaf and insensitive to cultural differences is not new for Bollywood as well. But if the peak of such an abrasive attitude ever had to be defined it has to be the theme of Bawaal. Or maybe not? Bollywood can always surprise us in unanticipated ways. 

For the uninitiated the trailer was itself clear about drawing parallels to the war crimes related to World War 2 and the pitfalls of a failing relationship. One hoped that the film that released on Amazon Prime would traverse this difficult analogy with grace that was lacking in the trailer but such hopes were effectively thwarted by the makers. The film does not attempt to make any serious commentary about the war scenario and is content with anchoring its focus on the antics of the man-child lead played by Varun Dhawan. The chemistry between the lead pair, Varun Dhawan and Jhanvi Kapoor fails to inspire any interest in the screenplay. The film’s climax is set in the concentration camps of Auschwitz where both the protagonists imagine being gassed in order to realise each other’s worth. 

The fallacy here does not lie in looking at the past, but in not giving the tragedy its due importance in doing so.