Humanity on trial
Film: The Voice of Hind Rajab (Arabic with English subtitles)
Cast: Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees
Directed by: Kaouther Ben Hania
Duration: 1 hour 29 minutes
Rating: * * * *
Few films are as devastating as Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated and highly acclaimed The Voice of Hind Rajab — and that is partly because few stories are as tragic and gut-wrenching as this one. The film was held up by India’s censor board before finally releasing here, despite containing no onscreen violence — zero, zilch.
The film is based on facts and set entirely within one office, yet reconstructing what happened on that fateful day in January 2024 must have been harrowing in itself. The undisputed facts: a family was travelling in a car in Gaza when it was fired upon by the Israeli Defence Forces. Five-year-old Hind Rajab was left trapped inside, surrounded by the bodies of her uncle, aunt, and young cousins. She tried to hold on and call for help — but it was later discovered that soldiers had fired 355 bullets into the car, with a family and children inside. Let me put that in words: three hundred and fifty-five bullets. And that is not all — an ambulance with paramedics was dispatched to rescue her. They too were ambushed and killed.
The film uses real recordings from that day. We hear Hind Rajab’s voice — “Please come and take me,” she pleads — along with those of the Palestine Red Crescent Society volunteers who spoke to her.
A call comes in from Germany seeking assistance, which eventually leads to contact with Hind herself: a little girl who says she is trapped, that her cousins are bleeding but “sleeping”, and begs for help.
The entire film unfolds from within the Society’s office. Omar (Motaz Malhees) and Rana (Saja Kilani) take turns speaking with her, cycling through every shade of emotion — anger, desperation, helplessness. An ambulance is just eight minutes away, but it cannot leave without clearance; without permission, it too risks being shot. When it finally sets out, it cannot get through — buildings have been bombed, the roads buried under rubble. None of this is shown on screen; it exists only in conversation.
The chief coordinator Mahdi (Amer Hlehel) is sympathetic, yet he knows that deviating from protocol could cost more lives. That protocol requires obtaining permission from the Israeli Ministry of Defence through the Red Cross and other channels. “How can you coordinate with the army that killed them?” Omar asks.
Hind Rajab’s voice, meanwhile, is frightened but eerily calm. It is getting dark. She is alone. “Please come, I am so scared,” she says, again and again — while her mother calls desperately from home on another line.
You know how this ends. Yet Ben Hania makes you seethe with anger and frustration at the way it unfolds. One might ask whether a story like this risks being exploitative — the filmmaking is emphatically not. Some stories, however uncomfortable, demand to be told.
Credit is due to Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Jonathan Glazer, and Alfonso Cuarón, who came on board as executive producers.
They say all is fair in love and war — no, all is not fair. Period. And to paraphrase Bob Dylan: how many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died?
No, Thank you!
Film: Welcome to the Jungle
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal, Jacqueline Fernandez, Suniel Shetty
Directed by: Ahmed Khan
Duration: 2 hours 44 minutes
Rating: * 1 / 2
The third instalment in the Welcome franchise is called Welcome to the Jungle—but it is so mangled that it will make you yearn for some semblance of sanity. There is nothing wrong with lightweight, silly comedies, but there is a thin line between being delightfully goofy and descending into complete absurdity. Forget crossing that line—director Ahmed Khan’s film starts there, ends there, and keeps you trapped there for nearly three hours.
There isn’t even any respite during the interval. As soon as the ‘Interval’ caption appears on screen, Akshay Kumar pops up to say, “I know it’s interval, but we shot a song with me and Disha Patani that we couldn’t include in the film, so why don’t you watch it now?” Nature was calling, so I skipped the song, and I’m fairly certain I didn’t miss much.
The ambitions are certainly grand. The film packs in an enormous cast and an equally large supporting cast in an attempt to fill every inch of the screen. I genuinely felt sorry for Farida Jalal, though I also admired how she not only survived but actually thrived amid all the chaos. But nonstop chatter and an endless stream of silly gags do not automatically translate into comedy—not for audiences of all age groups, at least.
With a story credited to the late Neeraj Vora, the film also borrows liberally from Tropic Thunder (2008), only to turn into a tropical blunder.
Zakir Hussain plays the ultra-rich businessman who is tipped off by his politician friend (Brijendra Kala) about an impending income tax raid. To avoid paying taxes, he decides to invest in a deliberately bad film and claim financial losses. He probably needed a better chartered accountant—or simply a little more common sense. Maybe both.
His trusted aide (Johnny Lever) recruits two filmmakers, Dev (Paresh Rawal) and Das (Rajpal Yadav), who are anything but competent. Their cameraman, Nainsukh (Shreyas Talpade), ironically can’t see very well. The businessman’s daughter (Jacqueline Fernandez) also arrives after dyeing her hair blonde and proceeds to behave like, well, a stereotypical dumb blonde.
The filmmakers need a hero and settle on Raju (Akshay Kumar), a washed-up actor whose glory days are long behind him and who now works in Bhojpuri cinema. He is accompanied by his largely unnecessary manager (Tusshar Kapoor). If you think the film already has enough characters, hold on—there are at least a dozen more. There’s Raju’s ex, Nadia (Disha Patani); two Bhojpuri actors (Mukesh Tiwari and Yashpal Sharma); and two television actors (Krushna Abhishek and Kiku Sharda). Then come two gangsters with indirect ties to the Welcome universe: Yeda Anna (Suniel Shetty), who is related to Nana Patekar’s character, and Romeo (Arshad Warsi), who is Anil Kapoor’s sibling.
The entire troupe heads to a village across the border to shoot the film, where even more characters join the proceedings, including the villain Zatara (Jackie Shroff, trying hard to look interested). In one scene, while the hero is dancing, Zatara yawns. “Woh bore ho raha hai,” another character remarks. I could completely empathise with that sentiment.
Because the screenplay tries so desperately to manufacture comedy, the occasional joke or bit of wordplay does land. Kiran Kumar’s character, whose chaste Urdu leaves everyone thoroughly confused, provides one such moment. But beyond these isolated laughs, there is simply too much chatter and too much slapstick to make sitting through this film worthwhile.
The actors give it their best despite an exceedingly flimsy screenplay. Daler Mehndi also appears as himself, and apart from me and many in the audience, he looked like the most disinterested person in the film.
