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Friday the 16th wasn’t just a test for Moon Moon Sen: daughter Raima had two films up for release, a rarity for any actor. While I haven’t watched Baari Tar Bangla yet, the film that brings Raima Sen the actress into the spotlight is, without a doubt, Children of War, first-time filmmaker Mrityunjay Devvrat’s gritty and very, very gory depiction of the murder and mayhem surrounding the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.
The film, which claims to be “based on real events but fictionalised”, opens with Raima’s Fida as the spunky child-woman wife of hard-talking journalist Aamir (Indraneil Sengupta). In the middle of the war for independence, Aamir is that lone voice that believes that the pen is the way to win Bangladesh her freedom, even as his countrymen are being brutalised at every street corner. Fida is the one bright spot in Aamir’s life, but 10 minutes into the film, he watches in horror as his front door is kicked open, his home vandalised and his wife repeatedly and ruthlessly raped. Aamir’s eyes echo the brutality of the scene, but it is Raima who brings alive the helplessness of a woman wronged, the playfulness of her eyes gradually giving way to painful emptiness.
Fida’s story is the story of 400,000 Bangladeshi women during those nine months that Bangladesh fought for its freedom. Abused to the point where even death seemed more desirable, these women, in thousands of concentration camps across the country, became the victims of the brutality of the Pakistani army to achieve a single goal: If you have to break the spirit of a country, torture its women.
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It is in one of the many concentration camps that Fida finds herself herded to after the rape. Made to stand for hours, slapped and kicked around, disrobed gleefully with a hosepipe, raped repeatedly and finally silenced by a bullet — the fate of all these women is the same. The unending scenes of torture are tough to stomach, especially on a near-empty stomach on a Friday morning, but it is to Raima’s credit that she lends Fida a quiet dignity and calmness, holding out even when the rest collapse around her. When she finally breaks down, that cry of agony and anguish echoes in the heart of every viewer.
Children of War isn’t a film for the faint-hearted. The rape scenes are violent and repulsive, and the scenes of mass murder often make you tear your eyes away from the screen. But this is a story so poignant and pathetic that it needs to be watched, specially buoyed by some powerful performances. Aamir’s transition from the pen to the gun is brought out effortlessly by Indraneil, while Pavan Malhotra’s turn as the reprehensible Malik is the film’s standout act. Just watch him in that scene in which he engages in a soliloquy with the gun in his hand to re-realise what a powerful actor the man is. As the young Bangladeshi boy Rafiq who sees his family massacred right before him, child actor Riddhi Sen — we remember him as the endearing Poltu from Kahaani — does justice to his substantial screen time by holding his own. A special mention for Rucha Inamdar, who makes a mark as Rafiq’s sister Kausar. Victor Banerjee, Tillotama Shome and Farooque Shaikh sparkle in their cameos.
Children of War may not have that big star or chartbuster item number. What it has is far bigger: a story of the human spirit — browbeaten but never broken.
