Xhoixobote Dhemalite review: Sensitive portrait of children in a conflict zone

Set in the time of Assam's violent student agitation against illegal immigrants, mainly from Bangladesh, in the 1980s, Xhoixobote Dhemalite or Rainbow Fields is the story of the effect of extreme violence on children living in a conflict zone.

The film is partly autobiographical, as the director, who grew up during the years of the anti-foreigner agitation, taps into his own childhood experiences.

While ‘childhood in areas of conflict’ is a subject explored repeatedly in many different ways in other film industries — from Isao Takahata's Grave Of The Fireflies (1988) in Japan to Iran's Turtles Can Fly (2004), it remains under-explored in Indian cinema.

Director Bidyut Kotoky tells the story of Niyor (Kotoky plays the older version while Maharnav Mahanta plays the younger one), a filmmaker who revisits his past and confronts an unfortunate accident in his childhood. 

Kotoky takes us into Niyor’s childhood, set against the backdrop of a village in Assam's picturesque Brahmaputra valley, where he and his friends are trying to go about their daily lives even as unrest begins to brew around them. 

While Niyor’s adorable younger sister Kuwali (Gia Baruah) goes mum after witnessing a violent incident, Niyor is affected more on a subconscious level. Seeing people burning to death and witnessing bloated corpses floating in a river can scar young minds for life. 

Enter theatre-actor grandfather (Victor Banerjee), who arrives to defuse the growing tension and help Kuwoli speak again. Just as Guido (actor-director Roberto Benigni) convinces his son that everything happening in the Nazi concertration camp is part of a game in the Oscar-winning film Life Is Beautiful (1997), Banerjee pretends that the acts of violence they have witnessed was just part of a film shooting.

Banerjee lights up the screen for as long as he occupies it, getting dramatic, changing the tone of the film somewhat.

Just like Banerjee’s character, Niyor’s parents, like most parents would, try to shield the children from the brutal truth instead of educating them about the real situation.

So the denial of strife lasts only for a moment, before the true effects of the violence on the innocent minds shows up in the form of an unfortunate accident.

Influenced by things happening around him and fascinated by his grandfather's take on realism in plays and films, Niyor gets carried away.  

The director makes sure to add the perspective of Niyor's best friend Pulak (Rishiraj Barua), the son of the driver, who has no way of escaping from the things happening around him. It creates a contrast to the life of Niyor, whose parents can afford to pack him off to a boarding school in a more peaceful area. 

Kotoky references the Nellie massacre, which took place in 1983, where 2,191 suspected immigrants were killed, and portrays its effect on a bunch of children who have witnessed the aftermath of that brutality. The scene is metaphoric. The description of over 40 dead bodies seen floating in the Brahmaputra is a comment on how the beauty of the state has been tarnished by the violence.

The natural beauty of the Brahmaputra valley is juxtaposed against the ugliness of the agitation, which originally began as a non-violent protest. The scene is chilling because a bunch of children narrate the brutal happenings they had seen with their own eyes.

Kotoky’s turn as the father who wants the best for his children is a little bland. He seems to have miscast himself in the role. The older Niyor feels drastically different from the younger one.

Model and actress Dipannita Sharma, who plays his wife, gives a more authentic portrayal of a mother concerned with the effects of violence on the psyche of her two kids.

The stars of the show though are the children, especially Niyor, Kuwali and Pulak, with their most authentic and compelling turn. 

The world barely stops to think about how protests, agitations, violence and terrorism affect the lives of children. While this film is important for that reason, its major flaw lies in its predictability and the lack of complexity in the perspectives put forth. 

Niyor's appeal at the end of the film, about dreaming and turning those dreams into reality, instead of portraying reality, gives a message of hope. 

Xhoixobote Dhemalite is not just about a bunch of kids from a village in Assam; it is about every child caught in a conflict around the world, whether it is Syria or Myanmar, in these increasingly violent and apathetic times. Therein lies its universality. And despite its simplistic approach, it does paint a sensitive portrait of children bearing the consequences of decisions made by adults and trying to make sense of a seemingly senseless world.