by PALLAB BHATTACHARYA
Bangladeshi director Rubaiyat Hossain’s debut feature film about a Bangladeshi woman’s love affair with a Pakistani soldier during the 1971 Liberation War has triggered a fierce controversy forcing its distributor to take the movie off cinema halls across Bangladesh a week after its release.
The director fears that the film, whose cast includes veteran actors Victor Banerjee and Jaya Bachchan in lead roles along with Bangladeshi and Pakistani actors, could be banned if suggestions to this effect from certain quarters is accepted by Bangladesh government.
“I apprehend that my film could be banned. In that case, where do I go?” Rubaiyat, daughter of Bangladesh Communication Minister Abul Hossain, told PTI over phone from Dhaka.
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Film critics in Bangladesh have found the affair between the Pakistani soldier and young Meher, the Bangladeshi girl, totally unconvincing and “naive,” totally out of tune with the reality of the Liberation War.
While acknowledging that Meherjaan is not a documentary, they also pointed to the factually inaccuracies of Meher and the Pakistani soldiers frolicking through mustard fields and romancing, which was not possible during the war days. In fact, the films claims to be a love story in the backdrop of the war but there is little of the war in it.
The critics also pointed to alleged distortion in the portrayal of another woman character in the film– that of Meher’s cousin Neela who is not shamed by the fact that she was raped by Pakistani soldiers and carried a child of that action.
The director says she has tried to narrate a love story and depict the Liberation War through the perspective of three strong women— Meher, Neela and her daughter—as against the usual trend of presenting the war through “male” perspective.
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