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Nitesh Tiwari’s Bawaal, starring Janhvi Kapoor and Varun Dhawan, has landed in controversy internationally as the Jewish human rights body Simon Wiesenthal Center has objected to the way film has conflated the tragedy in the narrative. The film’s lead characters travel to World War 2 sites and visit a gas chamber in Auschwitz. They are shown inside a gas chamber in a dream-like sequence with visuals where they are struggling to breathe. In one scene, Janhvi’s character Nisha says, “We’re all a little like Hitler, aren’t we?” when speaking about human greed. And in another scene, the character is heard saying, “Every relationship goes through their Auschwitz” implying that every relationship has its struggles.
Simon Wiesenthal Center is a Jewish human rights organisation that defends the safety of Jews worldwide and calls out anti-Semitism and hate. The organisation also works towards preserving the memory of those who were killed during the Holocaust. SWC Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action, Rabbi Abraham Cooper has asked Amazon to “stop monetising” Bawaal with immediate effect and called the film a “banal trivialisation of the suffering and systematic murder of millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust.”
He said, “Auschwitz is not a metaphor. It is the quintessential example of Man’s capacity for Evil.” The statement further read, “By having the protagonist in this movie declare that ‘Every relationship goes through their Auschwitz,’ Nitesh Tiwari, trivializes and demeans the memory of 6 million murdered Jews and millions of others who suffered at the hands of Hitler’s genocidal regime.”
“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 should stop monetizing Bawaal by immediately removing this banal trivialization of the suffering and systematic murder of millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust,” the statement concluded.
In a recent interview with Pinkvilla, director Nitesh Tiwari defended his film and said that he was “disappointed with the way some people” had interpreted the Auschwitz sequences in the film. “I am a bit disappointed with the way some people have comprehended it. That was never the intention. It would never be my intention to be insensitive in any which way… Don’t we see Ajju and Nisha getting completely troubled and moved by what they see in Auschwitz? They do. They see the prisoners, they see how they were stacked, they see how they were exterminated. Are they being insensitive about it? No. They are moved to tears,” he said defending the film.
Tiwari said he was hurt by people questioning his intent. “You can question the creative process, you can question the creatives, but please do not question the intent. The moment you start questioning the intent, it becomes hurtful,” he said. Tiwari insisted that there were “so many good messages which are there in the movie. You take out one or two odd incidents, and run down the whole film.” In an earlier conversation with Galatta Plus, Tiwari said that he chose World War 2 as the backdrop because it was “fresh” for the Indian audience. “Rather than him teaching World War 2 in the school, he could have been teaching any of our historical stuff. My biggest thing was there is something fresh which I always crave to bring to my audience, both story wise as well as visually,” he said.
Janhvi Kapoor also defended the film and said that when she spoke about the film with an Ivy League university professor whose ancestors did not survive the Holocaust, he wasn’t offended by it but in fact, was “very moved” by the film. “He understood everything that we set out to do with the film, and never once in the conversation did he ever allude to being offended by anything,” she told Pinkvilla.
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