Disclaimer: I don’t watch movies. I watch documentaries. Hence my opinions about a movie could be farther away from the mainstream movie review industry.
‘BITJ’ is a lone right wing movie that has all the right content and intent.
BITJ speaks the truth about urban naxals, their methods and their infiltration in the mainstream world. While it is the obvious truth in India, one wouldn’t have heard of this being spoken in the public space. For, the space is occupied by the urban naxals themselves.
BITJ speaks truth to the untruthful world, but does a lack lustre job of painting a cohesive picture.
The film looks at the dichotomy in the world through the eyes of a management student. The student gets to know about tribals, naxalites, government forces out to destroy the naxalites, some lessons on socialism, academic infiltration by the naxalites, love, middlemen who prevent genuine development of the tribals and many other things. The film is all over the place.
The movie shows elite, ever-smoking, ever-boozing students in an even more elite business school. Probably, the only time the guys and girls don’t smoke is when they sleep.
BITJ is a valiant attempt at portraying truth, but seems to meander around with lectures and pontifications.
In any case, the director Vivek Agnihotri deserves praise for his avant garde effort to speak a truth that is not spoken at all, for the repercussions from Bollywood, academia and media would be too heavy to bear. He withstood the media onslaught, physical violence unleashed on him due to the film, and a general exorcism by the media-academia-industry establishment.
His soon to be released book by name ‘Urban Naxals’ is expected to speak on the trials and tribulations that the director had to undergo prior to and after the release of the film.
Kudos to the director-author Vivek Agnihotri.
Amaruvi's Aphorisms 