The Materpiece: Children of War
At heart this is a conventional lovely story of a couple (Indraneil Sengupta and Raima Sen) separated by sudden war. Standing forlorn, silhouetted by barbed wires in a concentration camp, Raima sometimes looks way too beautiful to be a victim. She can't help it. Along with her every member of the cast rises above his or her personality to become part of the director's epic design. Special mention must be made of Pavan Malhotra, Tilotama Shome (playing a human bomb), Riddhi (so young and so much pain!) and Victor Bannerjee in a memorable cameo as a traveling refugee reminds us that humanism and barbarism are neighbours.
Aiding the actors to achieve the acme of authenticity is the film's mesmeric sound-design and music. In one harrowing graphic sequence, a rock anthem reverberates across the skyline as drains filled with blood tell sagas of the savagery that waits just outside our homes. Genocide is not only history. It is what a country gets when intolerance is encouraged by political interests. There are visuals and sounds of pain and anguish in this turbulent treatise on one of history's worst atrocities that will stay with me forever.
It is impossible to believe that this war epic has been directed by a first time filmmaker. How can a virgin artiste conceive such a vivid portrait of the rape of a civilization? This isn't really a film. It's a work of art, tempestuous and terrific.
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