‘Children of War: A Review’

The over-hyped film ‘Children of War’ was full of inaccuracies and was an insult on the face of Bangladesh.

The film released on the 16^th of May was renamed into ‘Children of War’ from ‘The Bastard Child’ right at India as the Indian Motion Pictures Association expressed concern over the title word ‘Bastard’ and the production crew and as a result, the debutante director  Mrityunjay Devvrat hardly had control over the basics of his film.

What was most frustrating about the film was the way it was dubbed into Bangla.

The film had a linear story where a young lad wearing kajal begins his speech in front of a number of Bangladeshis clad in flags/bandanas mimicking the events of the Shahbagh movement in the early 2013.

The boy begins to tell a story in his speech and the film begins to progress with his narration.

The film starts with a newlywed couple’s home set in the 1971 where the notable journalist Aamir (Indraneil Sengupta) was listening to Bangabandhu’s declaration of Independence speech and all of a sudden, the Pakistani Major Malik along with two of his subordinates enters the premise and confronts the journalist and his wife claiming that Aamir’s patriotism is in no match with what the Pakistani forces have for Pakistan. Aamir and Major Malik argues to certain point when Malik beats Aamir extensively and asks his subordinates to grab him so that he cannot move. At that point, Malik rapes Aamir’s wife Fida (Raima Sengupta) right in-front of his eyes.

On the later scenes, a number of captive women of various ages were brought to a concentration camp and they were dropped from a number of trucks in a very inhuman manner. Later, their ages were asked along with their names. Major Malik describes their necessity to the audience as these captive women will be forcefully used to give birth to children who will have Pakistani blood running through their veins by ordering a Doctor “I want these women to be pregnant. Do what you need to do!”

A different plot is shown alongside the struggle of the journalist Aamir to find his captive wife Fida and to grow a resistance against the occupying Pakistani Forces. A young boy named Rafiq (Riddhi Sen) embarks on an exodus to flee from the atrocities of the Pakistani Forces and they face a number of attacks from the Pakistani Soldiers and meet a number of people on their way. All of these people were refugees and they were all going to the India-Bangladesh border. At the very end, Rafiq is killed by two Pakistani Soldiers while his sister Gaosar (Rucha Imamdar) is devastated at his brother’s death as she stops right at the middle of the flowing river stream near the no man’s land at Charhati.

The Climax of the film is portrayed by Aamir and his wife Fida when they both meet each other after long nine months and Aamir discovers Fida to be pregnant. Fida, concerned over her condition tries to move away from Aamir but Aamir holds her hand from behind.

Later, the young boy who was giving his speech from the beginning of the film claims that he is that bastard child whom Fida gave birth and an old Aamir is seen among the crowd proud of his son. The boy (Shatrunjay Devvrat) proudly says that what the Pakistani Forces had thought was wrong. Even though he was a bastard child, the blood of Bangladesh flows strong in his veins and he will do whatever it takes to make his country prosper.

The film ends.

Apart from the plot, the film can be called a rape film since there were rape scenes now and then. The film was visually rich as the camera works had that tag of being an Indian Film. The background score was not up to the mark as the music often did not match the ongoing scenes in the film. The characters portrayed in the film did not at all match the true characters of the real life war heroes of 1971 as the actors/actresses either acted too much or lacked what was needed.

The film was set at Dhaka but the concentration camp seemed to be on an open field with a number of poles hanging stage spotlights with hills seen in the background.

The audience at the Blockbuster Cinema Hall was mostly frustrated due to the poor dubbing they did not at all anticipate. Zawad Hasan Adib, one of the audience said “The film lacked everything it needed to be a liberation war film. At some point of the film, I felt that I was lost. I think the director was himself confused with the story or he could not arrange it properly.”

“One dialogue that makes sense most was what one of the freedom fighter captives at the Pakistani concentration camp said about flooding the whole of Pakistan with the Bangladeshi’s urine when Major Malik urinates on that poor guy “said Prince. “This was the only dialogue I found to be nerve wracking”

Whatever the film was, the director should be praised for making such a controversial film which deals with unspoken issues of the history of this subcontinent.