Kashmiri muslims claim genocide against them by the indian state and justify violent jihad against the "colonial" entity. You can hardly claim such a thing after having mass murdered and exiled the last remaining people of your own minority -- an integral part of the idea of an imagined community "kashmiriyat". Years of proxy war and radicalism can do that to a place. The oppression of Kashmiri pandits continued from long before that, many sensed the inbound doom and left. The gory brutality of the crimes committed by radicalized muslims against the pandits is well documented and yet remains an underexplored sentiment as a much more pernicious strain of wokeism pervades India (in contrast with the west) and polices even a remote possibility of finger pointing at islam/muslims for the sufferings of non-muslims in the subcontinent. Until that spectre is investigated and laid bare, a solution to Kashmir and other such places is a mere fantasy. However, many movies disregard that and dive straight into the issue of Kashmiri muslims being stuck in an active warzone with overpowering infiltrator and an apathetic government. Notwithstanding the fact that they shared religious bonhomie with the infiltraror and antipathy towards the government for simply being of a Hindu Majority nation. Therefore, good-quality movies from the POV of Kashmiri Pandits, Hindus and India (all very different with decent amount of overlap) are needed for serious discussion -- which feel-good chest thumping movies like "Maa Tujhe Salaam" cannot bring in.
On the movie Baramulla: I have seen Jambhale's "Article 370" which was a well filmed mixture of political drama, action and social commentary if you discount the overture to expressionless Govil-Modi. Jambhale is good at his craft. Aditya Dhar of "Dhurandhar" fame is a writer on both these movies and shines through.
Baramulla attempts to be horror while its main purpose is theatrical social commentary. The lead pair come from theatre background and do a really good job at adjusting emoting for a movie. The sequences are moving and really bring out the horror of what happened to KPs. It also points to a continuous inquisition going on in the subcontinental Islamic environment, desperately trying to cleanse the Muslims of their history/roots. But the dialogue writing leaves much to be desired and points to a gap between the theatre and the film -- and something I feel needs criticism, despite the fact that I am 100% in for more movies like this. This gap is a persistent problem in Indian movies left or right where the movies have a strange unrefined nukkad natak residue in them. Now, such signature should not ever be erased but refined further because they could become a genre defining stylistic feature. Same is true for background music. For indian audiences, background music is preferred to be prominent and even a bit distracting whereas in Hollywood movies, it gels in the background to the point of becoming white noise. Therefore, the prominence of the BGM while sometimes jarring, in other cases, makes indian filmography more unique and dramatic -- swelling surges putting the observer in the centre of the emotional turmoil going through the mind of the POV character. Another irritant was the sloppy action -- which i thought Jambhale is good at, going by Article 370 (Manav Kaul's character dodges a bullet by ducking....).
I really liked the depiction of the spiritual elements of KP existence, of which the screenplay seems to have a good understanding because kashmir shaivism has a very distinct and complex profile. It is good that despite borrowing heavy influence from Hollywood where the same scene would be depicted as satanic, the aesthetic in Baramulla instead chooses Bhairava-like influence (after all, the actual European satanism echoes the pain of the gods that were taken down, the haunting image of an angel that fell for speaking up against the popular and uncomplicated sky daddy). The movie frames this in parallel with Manav's character being haunted by his past actions and by the past actions of his community. When Bhasha's character barges in on the police investigation I did think "are you serious?" because the full extent of the supernatural element was not clarified yet and it made a great transition into the landscape where present, past and the other plane merge to generate a painful reliving of the trauma which is otherwise cliche in horror movies. Unlike "Article 370", this movie also doesn't indulge in some kind of ego massage of national leaders. I suppose if some day KPs return to their homeland in peace, it would make sense to express gratitude to those who facilitate it.
Overall, this is a great attempt at starting a discussion on the sufferings of non-muslims of the Indian subcontinent. If more such movies are made, maybe we reach proper and specific artistic expressions for theatre, cinema and reportage and provide a platform to the voiceless.
I really liked the depiction of the spiritual elements of KP existence, of which the screenplay seems to have a good understanding because kashmir shaivism has a very distinct and complex profile. It is good that despite borrowing heavy influence from Hollywood where the same scene would be depicted as satanic, the aesthetic in Baramulla instead chooses Bhairava-like influence (after all, the actual European satanism echoes the pain of the gods that were taken down, the haunting image of an angel that fell for speaking up against the popular and uncomplicated sky daddy). The movie frames this in parallel with Manav's character being haunted by his past actions and by the past actions of his community. When Bhasha's character barges in on the police investigation I did think "are you serious?" because the full extent of the supernatural element was not clarified yet and it made a great transition into the landscape where present, past and the other plane merge to generate a painful reliving of the trauma which is otherwise cliche in horror movies. Unlike "Article 370", this movie also doesn't indulge in some kind of ego massage of national leaders. I suppose if some day KPs return to their homeland in peace, it would make sense to express gratitude to those who facilitate it.
Overall, this is a great attempt at starting a discussion on the sufferings of non-muslims of the Indian subcontinent. If more such movies are made, maybe we reach proper and specific artistic expressions for theatre, cinema and reportage and provide a platform to the voiceless.
