I came to see Sudipta Sen’s much talked about movie ‘The Kerala Story’ from our neighborhood Cineplex. The film has been showing in Toronto since May 12. I didn’t get tickets in the first week, the house was full. Kerala Story has already done a business of 298 crore rupees.
It is estimated that the profit would have exceeded Rs 1000 crore if it was shown unhindered in every state of India. This film produced by a Bengali director will be the highest commercial success film in India. Sudipta Babu has proved that it is not impossible to become a banana tree if you can make a film about religious extremism just like the business of religion in India.
The production style of the film is of international standard which is much more technically sound than another such film ‘Kashmir File’. Sudipta Sen has shown great skill in site selection camera work. But the dialogue was of very ordinary quality. The director has managed to keep the audience in a tense tension with the judicious use of ambient music.
There can be a lot of debate about how much the story of the film is similar to the reality, but I feel that the Kerala story is a well-known fact of religious radicalization all over the world, including India. As we say ‘Our freedom was won by the blood of three million martyrs’.
It may be one lakh or ten lakh but it is not true that lakhs of Bengalis were martyred in our liberation war. If we google we see many footages of ISIS militancy, is the Kerala story much more than those documentary footages? The biggest thing about the film is giving a wrong message that the film was made before the Kerala Vidhan Sabha elections with the sole intention of spreading communal hatred in India, which I think is not true.
Because the film contains facts, and when a film is made from facts, it is part of the creator’s freedom of speech. Many people may disagree with some of the events in the film, I have too, so banning the exhibition of the film is a kind of political expediency and undemocratic action by the state governments.
Viewers can also watch the film out of curiosity. They can have their independent opinion there. I am always in favor of free expression. I hope Sudipta Sen will then make a film about the mass rape of BJP religious extremists and the farcical acquittal of criminals on Bilkis Banu in Gujarat, because this is also a very brutal and brutal fact.
Scarborough, Canada
