Bheed movie review: Pandemic-induced migration and intersecting socio-economic vulnerabilities
Published on: 8 June 2023, 02:51 pm
"Every time this [overloaded jute] truck drives over bumpy ground, there is a fear that the jute might split at the seams and from a society held together, we will be a divided crowd (bheed)".
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THE comparison of an overloaded jute truck with a divided crowd is in reference to the COVID pandemic and homebound migrant workers made by reporter Vidhi Prabhakar (Kritika Kamra) in Anubhav Sinha's movie Bheed.
Sinha is also known for other social dramas like Article 15 starring Ayushmann Khurrana.
Bheed is a black-and-white social drama in Hindi, highlighting the grim realities of migrant workers wanting to return home amidst the lockdown, through the intersectionality of social evils that have plagued subcontinental society for long.
The story is set thirteen days after the sudden declaration of the first COVID-induced lockdown in March 2020 when more migrant workers braved the road than all the masks or sanitisers the government could produce.
The movie shows how the pandemic sharpened social divisions and prejudice such as caste-based discrimination, Untouchability and Islamophobia across the country.
The movie's opening scene about 16 migrant workers being run over by a train while they are sleeping on the railway track sets a morose tone which goes on to unravel pandemic-influenced migration.
Bheed's initial trailer made a parallel reference to the India–Pakistan Partition. The comparison was eventually censored as it did not sit well with the government.