Kaisa BANDAR banaya !!

Kaisa BANDAR banaya !! : My quick take on “Bandar” (theatrical release)

A deadly combination of the Paatal Lok writers and the ever-enigmatic Anurag Kashyap was reason enough for me to buy a ticket.

I walked in expecting a commercial film with festival-film ambitions.

I walked out feeling I had watched a festival film trapped inside a commercial movie. Or perhaps the other way around.

Bandar is dark, disturbing and relentlessly uncomfortable. The desolate mood it creates slowly gets on your nerves and stays there long after the credits roll.

At its heart is a career-best performance from Bobby Deol. The writing is sharp, the social media trial sequences feel frighteningly real, and the film refuses to hand out easy heroes or villains.

My only issue?

The ending.

I don’t mind ambiguity. But ambiguity and incompleteness are cousins, not twins. After spending two-and-a-half hours asking difficult questions, the film seems oddly reluctant to answer even a few of them.

Which brings me to the title.

Kaisa bandar banaya!

Character bandar.

Media bandar.

System bandar.

Privilege bandar.

Society bandar.

The protagonist makes a bandar of people.

The media makes a bandar of truth.

The system makes a bandar of justice.

And by the end, you’re left wondering:

Who is the real bandar?

The celebrity?

The media?

The system?

Society?

The filmmaker?

Or the audience that willingly bought a ticket to watch the circus?

A powerful, provocative film that gets under your skin… but escapes the cage before the circus is over.

Bandar bhaaga tha… ya kahaani?