Janhvi Kapoor Continues To Defend ‘Bawaal’ Despite Backlash, Says “Heart Of The Film Was In The Right Place”
Janhvi Kapoor defended her latest release ‘Bawaal’ again, saying that the film's heart was in the right place.
Nitesh Tiwari’s latest directorial ‘Bawaal’ released on Amazon Prime Video on July 21 and immediately landed in controversy after the viewers found certain World War II scenes in the new Hindi movie as problematic and insensitive. ‘Bawaal’ starred Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor in the lead roles. While some loved the unique plot of the film, a major section of the people labelled the movie as “insensitive” and “tone deaf”. Even a month after the release, Janhvi Kapoor continued defending the film despite the backlash.
At one point, Janhvi’s character in the 2023 Bollywood film says, “We’re all a little like Hitler, aren’t we?”, while another character says, “Every relationship goes through their Auschwitz.”
In a new interaction with Galatta Plus, Janhvi Kapoor responded to the criticism the film has been receiving for its insensitive parallels between the lead pair's romance and World War II.
She said, “I was part of a lot of the initial discussions with the makers about what the intention was, what the thought was. I had a lot of clarity on what we were trying to say and where that was coming from, and I believe that it’s a very pure thought of just trying to move people by what had happened and try to hopefully motivate them to understand that our problems are nowhere near anything compared to what had happened, and hopefully get them to see things in a new way.”
To explain her perspective, Janhvi Kapoor further spoke about the 2015 internet phenomenon known as ‘the dress’. Some saw the dress in question as white and gold, and others saw it as black and blue, and the actor said that the same thought can be applied to ‘Bawaal’.
“I come with the information of the intention and the thought, and everything that we felt when we made it and what we set out to do. So I can only really look at it right now in that way,” she said.
When asked about defending the film, much like how her co-star Varun Dhawan did, Janhvi Kapoor said that “the heart of the film was in the right place.”
She added, “It’s all a matter of perspective. I feel sad that what some people got from the film was that we were trivialising it. That was, in no way, the intention. I would like to understand where that opinion is coming from but I guess there’s nothing I can do as an actor right now to change the course of how people have digested this information.”
Previously, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Ambassador of Israel to India, Naor Gilon, accused the film of being insensitive and said that it trivialised “the suffering and systematic murder of millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust.”
Prior to Janhvi Kapoor, Varun Dhawan also defended ‘Bawaal’ and told Pinkvilla, “Some people got trigged or sensitive about this. But I don’t understand where does that sensitivity or trigger go when they watch, suppose an English film, I’m saying for example. They’re allowed to do everything there, they’re allowed to take leaps and they’re allowed to show things in a certain way, but you’ll find that correct."
For the unversed, 'Bawaal' shows its characters Ajay and Nisha (played by Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor) travelling to the sites of World War II and the duo also visit a gas chamber in Auschwitz.
