Congress and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) question the government's intentions and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) claims that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) neither belongs to Ram nor 'aam'. Hindu Sena also filed a writ petition against the film in Delhi High Court.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — Even though Adipurush, Om Raut’s Ramayan-based action film, has created a storm at the box office with its impressive first-day collection of Rs 36-36.50 crore, it is being talked about a lot, for all the wrong reasons though.
Written by Manoj Muntashir, the rabid Islamophobe, the film features Saif Ali Khan as Ravan who apparently looks like Muslim ruler Alauddin Khilji. From weak screenplay to substandard VFX, from lack of depth in characters to cringe dialogues, movie buffs feel that justice hasn’t been done to such an epic as Ramayana.
Despite its huge financial success, the film has come in for severe condemnation from political parties and social media users with Congress and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) questioning the government’s intentions and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) neither belongs to Ram nor ‘aam’.
AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said the movie once again proved that BJP is a cheap, ‘sadak-chhap’ party as the movie received blessings from several BJP and ally leaders including Yogi Adityanath, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Eknath Shinde, Devendra Fadnavis, Manohar Lal Khattar, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Pushkar Singh Dhami, and Narottam Mishra. “The BJP is not of the Ram, aam (general public) or kaam (work). It only does its dirty politics,” Singh said.
Shiv Sena (Uddhav) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi blasted the makers of ‘Adipurush’ and demanded an apology for the alleged pedestrian dialogues used in the film.
“The dialogue writer of Adipurush @manojmuntashir, as well as the director, should apologise to the nation for the pedestrian dialogues written for the movie, especially for Lord Hanuman,” Chaturvedi said in a tweet.
Congress’s Supriya Shrinate drew a parallel between Adipurush and the serial Ramayana of Ramanand Sagar and tweeted, “Ramanand Sagar did not hurt the faith of crores of people with Tapori language, but imprinted a sweet, gentle and charming image of Siyaram in the minds and hearts of society.”
Upset over some scenes in the film depicting religious leaders, Hindu Sena has filed a writ petition in Delhi High Court. Its national president Vishnu Gupta on Friday filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) demanding that the film not be certified for public exhibition.
“This is a writ petition in the shape of public interest litigation under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for issuance of an appropriate writ in the nature of direction to the respondents for removal of objectionable scenes depicting religious leaders/characters/figures in bad taste and issues a writ of mandamus to the respondents directing them to not certify the feature film Adipurush for public exhibition and pass such other or further order as this hon’ble court may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case,” Gupta said in his petition.
It further alleged that the film “hurt the sentiments of the Hindu community by depicting the religious leaders/characters/figures in an inaccurate and inappropriate manner.”
In its review of the movie, The Hindustan Times called it a “visual spectacle” with a lot to complain. It read: “Adipurush is merely a Bollywood-ised version of one of the most epic tales that ever existed. If you keep the story aside for it’s largely known to all, the execution turns out to be a messy blend of over-the-top CGI and passable VFX, and making it worse are the intentionally funny dialogues that sound misplaced in a sensitive and mythological story.”
The much-hyped movie was released on Friday to heightened emotions in many theatres with large crowds, a seat being reserved for Lord Hanuman and a man purportedly being beaten up in Hyderabad for criticising the film.
The movie occupied social media space with videos and photographs of people offering prayers before settling down in their seats.
Social media users pointed out that the film’s interpretation of the Ramayana was not faithful to the original text. Moreover, they held that the makers of the film took some liberties with the story. For example, they showed Lord Ram as an angry and violent man, which is not in keeping with his traditional depiction.
Even some dialogues such as ‘Jo humari behno ko haath lagaayenge, unki Lanka laga denge’ (Those who will touch our sisters, we will not spare them) and ‘Kapda tere baap ka. Tel tere baap ka. Aag bhi tere baap ki. Toh jalegi bhi tere baap ki’ (Clothes from your father, oil from your father, fire from your father, then it will be your father who will be burnt) have not been well-received by moviegoers.