The Bengal Files Movie Review: Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri’s slew of recent films are a true-blue reflection of the man that he is. Blunt, bold and brazen. Needless to say, the final film in his ‘Files’ trilogy titled The Bengal Films that follows The Tashkent Files and The Kashmir Files is no different. This time around, he chronicles yet another untold story of independent India, one that doesn’t shy away from histrionics. The Bengal Files focuses on the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946 and the Noakhali riots, that Agnihotri has referred to as a ‘Hindu genocide’.
There are two tracks running parallel to each other – one set in the 1940s before India got its independence and the other in the present times. The film opens with Lord Mountbatten, Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah discussing and debating the Partition of the country. While the British, the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League demand the creation of a separate country for Muslims, Mahatma Gandhi strongly opposes. It’s this Hindu-Muslim tension which has spilled over to even today, that forms the core theme of The Bengal Files.
