About Jai Bhim
Recently I watched Jai Bhim, a socio-political movie based on a real-life incident: a man is being framed for theft, tortured brutally, and then declared missing by the police. As his community, Irula people, often be subject to this kind of illegal arrest, we watch his wife seeking justice with the help of an advocate not only for her husband but also for the community.
It has the perfect message and probably will be a half-legendary movie as it represents defending the human rights of the “untouchables” in India but it is an under-average movie in terms of cinematic benchmarks while it could have been a deeper criticism.
The story was so influential and of course, the truth itself doesn’t need any ornament, yet it might have been enriched by involving the other institutions and less shaky cameras. I feel like there’s a missing opportunity in that sense. I guess they just didn’t want to dissolve the focus point from the message they’d like to convey: raising the awareness of the repression against Dalits.
Even though the movie is about one specific incident that happened in the ’90s, the effect of the story is not limited by the border and the date. Just like the movie “…and justice for all”, it is timeless in terms of the corruption of the institutions of both police and justice.
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It takes even more courage to speak up where the class struggle is. The movie already caused controversies with a scene where a person speaks Hindi and the other actor slaps him to speak in Tamil. IDK was there any intention in that direction by the moviemakers (i didn’t feel it but I’m not that familiar with this conflict anyway…)
I would rate it 4/10 in a parallel universe where movies such as “twilight” and “the tourist” doesn’t exist. but they exist, so, Jai Bhim deserves 5/10 for me as a movie because at least, as I highlighted before, it is more than a movie and I’m glad I watched and learn about Dalit Cinema.
I would totally recommend it if you’d like to catch a glimpse of bright hope from humanity or lose it (depending on your perspective).
In a sense, the cinema is a really great medium for raising awareness, leading people to learn more, take action, etc. But should it be? This is another topic that I’d like to write about but for sure, it’s really sad to think how the world would need more than experiences, news or history itself to be alert about what’s going on around the globe. Remember Alan Kurdi, the Syrian refugee boy who drowned while trying to sail. Everyone knew what’s going on and that he is not the only one but a photo just hit the ugly truth to our face: just knowing the fact doesn’t mean our brains would be able to comprehend the aspects fully not even from an individual level.
