Why Vivek Agnihotri's Brand of Cinema is Important

As an ardent film buff that was raised in a family of film buffs and a film podcast host myself, I found cinema fascinating right from the word go. Any type, any genre, anything would fit my palate. My ever generous older sibling calls me a true connoisseur.

But, given the kind of diverse cinema I have watched, enjoyed and put behind, “The Kashmir Files” still rings as a watershed.  Vivek Agnihotri, with this last of his trilogy, has finally hit home in storytelling of lost identities and demographics of the Kashmiri Pandits. His previous films, “Buddha in a Traffic Jam” and “The Tashkent Files” were powerful, but went cold at the box office. Agnihotri’s latest has not only made up for the lukewarm response to the previous ones, but is well on its way to creating history at the box office – a new after years.

I would like to laud Vivek Agnihotri for intelligent filmmaking. By that I mean, adeptly adopting a different lens in building the stories he wishes to tell. Let me explain the context a little more: Since times immemorial, we have seen Indian movies taking a particular narrative position for any situation. Be it the class war, caste war classics or the escapist entertainers of the 1950-80s or the parallel cinema of the 1970s and ‘80s, the narrative was loud and clear: the angry young man or woman will rise above the system or will be totally perished by the evil system. This demonization of the system or the establishment was so ingrained into the cine-goer conscience that nothing else seemed to register. We invariably walked into the theatres waiting for the annihilation of the demonic politician, or chastening of the avaricious capitalist. From Nargis’s anguish as the farmer in “Mother India” to Chitrangadha’s idealist in Sudhir Mishra’s classic, “Hazaaron Khwaaishen Aisi” – the romantic dogma of cultural and social revolution had spilled into public consciousness. 

Now, what makes Vivek Agnihotri’s stories interesting is the important fact that he and his actor wife, Pallavi Joshi have emerged from the heart of this school of thought.  Pallavi’s long tryst with parallel cinema and some of her outstanding performances in the films of Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani   and Amol Palekar are public knowledge. It is here that their journey makes for commentary – they chose to digress, dig deep and tell the world an alternative narrative which exposes the ecosystem that they were possibly a part of.  

Their storytelling is fairly entrenched in the milieu, and adopts an almost voyeuristic insider approach

to the people it talks about – this fluid, non-judgmental manner of leading the course of the movie can leave audiences a little confused as to what the filmmaker is actually trying to get at, till the plot thickens turn towards the message. For instance, “Buddha in a Traffic Jam” for the first hour and half promises to be any other movie about the Naxal movement and then provides a twist uncovering the pitfalls and the ugly truth behind the Red in the jungles of Bastar. The idea of engaging the audiences to soak in the “maahaaul” (the milieu) is uniquely Vivek’s style as I have observed in both Buddha and in TKF.

The characterization of Anupam Kher in Buddha and Pallavi in TKF is quite unmissable – they are both eminent academicians who have sway and considerable influence over their students and they choose to abuse this position with what their favourite students – Vikram and Krishna – discover to be consummately woven falsehoods.

 Another clever inspiration is the infusing of music from the works of the great socialist revolutionaries of yonder who get a lot of admiration from the intelligentsia and student groups in our country. Faiz’s immortal “Chand Roz Aur” and “HumDekhenge” have been nicely cooked or dare I say baked into Buddha and TKF and sung by Pallavi herself – these renditions come in at crucial points in the story and by design, drives home a message to the movie goer who would naturally be feeling a wave of nostalgia while he listens to these songs but for whom now revolution and freedom have a strange unease and disquieting note: In his mind, these are not mere ideals but possibly dangerous conduits used by vested interests to breaking the very core of the identity he belongs to. It is an astute psychology play by the filmmaker who has used the very cultural symbols and icons of the existing narrative to expose it. That he and his wife may have admired these at some point of time or still do may be a different speculation altogether.

I would place my bets post TKF, there would be fewer souls who would not give a second thought before they hummed Faiz’s “Hum Dekhenge” to the ramifications of the cost of the “Azaadi” and what it really stands for. And that, I believe, is the success and importance of Vivek Agnihotri’s brand of cinema, his brand of storytelling – he has very ably managed to a degree, to disrupt the hitherto held notion by many about Kashmir’s Azaadi - as a romantic, fair ideal to that of it possibly being a downhill journey to irreparable civilizational damage. The power of a movie is quite evident when it can showcase the flipside so authentically to shake even the disbelievers.

Having said that, let me say, TKF is not without its flaws. Neither is Vivek Agnihotri’s brand of film making perfect. There are imperfections, as one could see them clearly as a cine-goer and reviewer.

Accusations of TKF being a propaganda movie, and that of Vivek and Pallavi zealously milking into the success of a genocide story notwithstanding; it is still a very important movie. It is a movie to make you smell the coffee, and smell it fast – as an audience, as a community, as a nation - I meant this metaphorically.