Jewish organisation Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) and the Israeli embassy in New Delhi have called out Nitesh Tiwari’s Hindi film Bawaal for trivialising the Holocaust.
The romantic drama follows a high school history teacher Ajay Dixit (Varun Dhawan) and his wife Nisha (Jahnvi Kapoor) as they go on a Europe tour where they visit prominent World War II sites including Auschwitz.
The film has lines comparing marital discord to Auschwitz and greedy people to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It also shows Janhvi and Varun in striped pyjamas at a Nazi camp in a fantasy sequence.
Israeli ambassador to India Naor Gilon tweeted: “I did not and will not watch the film Bawaal but from what I’ve read, there was a poor choice of terminology and symbolism. Trivialisation of the Holocaust should disturb all. I urge those who don’t know enough about the horrors of the #Holocaust to educate themselves about it.”
In a scene from the film that was released on Prime Video last Friday, Hitler is used as a metaphor to describe human greed, with Kapoor’s character saying: “We’re all a little like Hitler, aren’t we?”
In another instance, she says “every relationship goes through its Auschwitz” in a reference to Nazi Germany’s largest concentration camp.
In a recreation of the horrors at the camp, the couple are dressed in striped clothing and placed in a gas chamber, where they are surrounded by people who are screaming and suffocating.
On Tuesday, SWC stated that Auschwitz should not be used as a metaphor as it’s a “quintessential example of man’s capacity for evil”.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, SWC’s associate dean and director of Global Social Action, said: “Tiwari trivialises and demeans the memory of six 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 publicity for the movie by filming a fantasy sequence at the Nazi death camp, he has succeeded.
“Amazon Prime should stop monetising Bawaal by immediately removing this banal trivialisation of the suffering and systematic murder of millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust.”
Netizens are accusing the film of “normalising Hitler’s rule” and for having “spectacularly poor taste”.
“Really don’t understand how this got green-lit. And the gall of Dhawan to engage in whataboutery when questioned,” a netizen tweeted.
Another wrote: “Gross. The lack of awareness here is staggering. To use the Holocaust as an analogy to a troubled romance? The criticism is more than justified in this case. Bollywood has a sensitivity problem.”
But the cast and director have called the criticism unwarranted. Speaking at a press junket, Tiwari said Bawaal was made with a lot of “love, care and good intentions”.
He added: “I’m 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.”
Leading up to the film’s release, Tiwari had told Press Trust Of India: “I’ve kept the incidents and events, which kind of play an important role in the arc of the characters and their relationships in the movie. Every incident has been carefully chosen. World War II is humongous, there is so much to say.”
Kapoor claimed an Israeli professor whose family members died during the Holocaust, praised the film and was not offended by the scenes. “The intention has always been pure,” she said.
Dhawan said he respected everyone’s opinion, adding that critics are harder on Hindi movies and give more leeway to Western films.
Indo-Asian News Service
