New Delhi: When the Covid-19 outbreak first hit India, people were outraged, stockpiled rations, and barricaded themselves inside their homes. Some were with relatives, whereas others were alone in other cities. Nevertheless, it was the migrant labourers who were left befuddled and trapped on the roadways as they attempted to return to their communities. And if anyone can express those genuine feelings on screen, it’s Anubhav Sinha. The filmmaker skillfully brought back horrible memories of the pandemic in his movie, Bheed, which was released Thursday, March 24.
The migrants stuck on the roads, a mother’s battle to bring her daughter back from some other city, a frontline doctor, a police officer, a politician, reporters reporting on the migrants’ plight – Bheed offers it all and it doesn’t feel crowded or dramatic. The picture, shot in black and white, is as brutal as it gets, wrenching your heart multiple times.
‘Ghar se nikal kar gaye the, ghar se hi aa rahe hain aur ghar se hi jaa rahe hain,’ says the man. In Bheed, a migrant labourer speaks this statement, which effectively summarises the film’s plot. Bheed shot primarily on a single road, depicts the harrowing experience of labourers who had left their villages to find work in other cities. Nevertheless, when the nation’s government-imposed Covid-19 lockdown was declared in May 2020, it resulted in the evacuation of approximately 10 million migrant labourers.
In Bheed, we have a police officer, Rajkummar Rao, who is assigned in charge of blocking highways to prevent people from returning to their villages in order to stop the virus from spreading. The labourers are forced to wait on the highways and in the adjacent fields without food or drink. A woman (Dia Mirza) is frantic to cross the UP border to reunite with her daughter. On her bicycle, a young girl with a sick father searches for ways to return home.
Surya’s (Rajkumar Rao) protagonist is really well-developed. As he does his best to uphold the law and order, he is split by the casteism he encounters on a regular basis. Surya’s girlfriend is played by Bhumi Pednekar, who plays a doctor. Even with Rajkummar at the helm, Anubhav continues to maintain the attention on the primary issue. Pankaj Kapur is a member of the Pandit group in Bheed, and he plays an important role.
