Team FC
Bastar: The Naxal Story is an excuse to depict activism as morally corrupt, Leftist ideology as dangerous and foreign, and Bengalis as untrustworthy intellectuals.
There are less than a handful of moments in which Bastar: The Naxal Story is able to make you feel for the characters on screen, and all of them feature Tiwari. Her shell-shocked face packs more of a visceral punch than the gratuitous gore that Sudipto Sen lavishes upon us
If Bastar: The Naxal Story had truly been interested in talking about the plight of those who are the actual victims of the tangled, blood-drenched politics of the region, Ratna and her family’s story would have been the focus of the film.
There’s no room for either subtlety or nuance in this film and to call the incidents of Bastar: The Naxal Story a plot would be unfair because to do so would raise expectations that there be narrative elements like character arcs and logic.
To be fair to Sharma, the acting in Bastar: The Naxal Story is as uniformly cartoonish as the storytelling, with the only exception being Indira Tiwari, who plays a widow and CRPF collaborator.
From the subtitles of Bastar: The Naxal Story, it’s evident that if anyone is tired, it’s those involved in the making of this film — because no one noticed that “fertile” becomes “fartile”, “warrior” becomes “worrior”, “stealing” becomes “steeling”.
The bile that Bastar: The Naxal Story has for left-liberals, intellectuals and anyone who reads a book is arguably not surprising, but the astounding lack of empathy that it shows by insisting that the real tragedy is that of the CRPF is deeply insensitive.