Guerrilla

Guerrilla is a movie about the Independence war of Bangladesh in the year 1971. At that time, Bangladesh was a eastern state of Pakistan (called East Pakistan), and the central government was formed in the now Pakistan state (West Pakistan). This war was spanned over 9 months, from March 26th to December 16th. The movie is based on the lives of civil people of Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, who stood against the Pakistan Army and fought in the guerrilla format.

As far as the script goes, it is based on a novel "Nishiddho Loban" (The Forbidden Scarf) by Syed Shamsul Haque, and also based upon real-life events from several freedom fighters. The director himself was an active member of the guerrilla group.

The most striking thing about this movie to me was the interpretation of the struggle and sufferings to a personal level. War is bad and we all know the statistics of the genocide. But these are not merely numbers, but actual people who fought and bled as the nation rises from the ashes of their sacrifice. The severity of the genocide, the rapes, the tortures were very graphic in the movie, and probably not suitable for a young audience.

On the brighter side, it was a movie well-written, the portrayals of the character Bilkis Banu, Altaf Mahmud, Capt. Sarfaraz Khan were very close to the actual truth. The cinematography was beautiful, considering the fact that it was a very low-budget movie.

It might not be outstanding in the standard of the international cinema, but as far as the cinema industry of Bangladesh goes, it was a remarkable work of art. No other movie based on the Independence war was so vivid in the portrayal of its terror and destruction.

I don't know about others, who wrote it is the best movie ever. I think they have not seen many many great movie was made in Bangladesh, Matir Moina, Aguner Poros Moni etc. It is a excellent movie no doubt. But dialog was poor also same goes to editing. Many characters are really useless, I think the producer is only took them to show their face on big screen. First half is good but in the second half it was going very very slow and we and The Paki's interrogation was boring. Same word every time, "when did you go to India." Don't think I am a Razakar. I love movies and always appreciate good effort. Thanks to the team for making this good movie and off course it was a great effort. Keep up with the good work.

This movie informs us how Pakistani army tortured the whole Bangladesh.They killed and raped the people of Bangladesh. Nasir Uddin Yousuff just made a miracle by making this movie. This movie is the best movie I have ever seen on our liberation war of 1971. Pakistani army did the same as Germans. They did not have any humanity.We can know all things clearly from this movie.This movie is a perfect reflection of 1971. And the main character of this movie Joya Ahsan acted her best in the movie.So it is more than excellent.There are some movies on 1971 incident. But none of them was able to catch our heart. But this movie could catch our heart. This is the great success for Guerrilla. I think Guerrilla should get good recommendation.

It has been 40 years. Why should you stick with that past? I wont get passed in my exam or get the order from the foreign company if those old war criminals get punished. When there was a hint of forgetting the history of Liberation war 1971 then came an outstanding movie named "Guerilla". I don't want to call it just a movie. Its just like a proof of the sacrifice made by the people of Bangldesh in 1971 liberation war. Lets go through the story. Bilkis Banu (Joya Ahsan) is a regular woman in 1971. But her life changed when her husband Hasan (Ferdous) lost from 25th march. Then she joined the war as a freedom fighter. Fund collection, weapon supply or sending music spools etc were mainly her responsibilities. Once she went to an aristocratic party as disguise and planted a bomb there. Everything was going according to the plan but once a freedom fighter was tortured so brutally that he had to confess all his helping hands names. Bilkis ran away from Dhaka to her father's place leaving her in laws. But Bangladesh is now a war country. Train stops due the breakdown of bridge front ahead. Bilkis started walking. She stumbles due to heap of dead bodies. Corpse are floating in the rivers. The war criminal RAZAKARs are burning all the villages. The RAZAKARs are taking all the women from the houses to keep the army people satisfied! A freedom fighter named Shiraj helped bilkis on the way. Her brother Khokon is also a freedom fighter. Khokon Commander was just making the life of Pakistan Army hell. But he was caught with the help of the Razakars and also brutally murdered by them. Then finally Bilkis was also caught while searching the dead body of her brother. But the pakistani captain Shamsad didn't know that the grenade on his table will cause the day his last day on earth.

As I have said before this movie is a complete movie depicting liberation war of 1971. The brutality of the war is totally unveiled in this movie. The first part of the movie tells the story of city based war and later half depicts the village based war. In every section the viewers had to ponder about the amount of help done by the traitor Razakars during the war. The viewers certainly would say: "Are these human??". There are same real characters like Altaf Mahmud ( Ahmed Rubel), Rumy, Bodi are in the film. Everyone did an outstanding job. As they had fire in their eyes the reveal the true history of 1971 war of Bangldesh. The brother in law of Bilkis, TASLIM Sardar's ( A.T.M. Shamsuzzaman) character was worth praise. All the characters of traitors are portrayed so well that everyone would want to spit on their face after watching.

Joya Ahsan did an absolutely splendid job. She proves again that she is the best actress of Bangladesh. Shatabdi Wadud was also marvelous. The making of the movie is just amazing. Its possible to make a movie about 1971 but not making the environment of 1971. The freedom fighter director Nasir Uddin Yousuff made that possible. From the Pakistan railways to green villages of Bangladesh. Everything was excellent. There are two antagonist role acted by Shatabdi Wadud. The characters could have been done by different person but this might be done intentionally to describe that the faces of all pak army of 1971 were same.

There are plenty scenes of violent brutality are shown in the film. Some scenes really make people to move on. Such scenes like when Altaf Mahmud said: "I am Altaf Mahmud".When the Milk boy Naren saying: "Where would I go leaving this country?" everyone had tears on their eyes.

I would say a little about the negative sides of this movie. The editing on the first half is not that good. Some scenes are very much confusing due to the fast pace. Backgound score should have been better.

No doubt its the movie of every people of Bangladesh. Everyone of Bangldesh should watch this film at least once to know more about the liberation war. We would hope more movies to come like this one to make our heart cry for the martyrs of 1971 and not to forget their sacrifice.

The first thing is, making a movie on war is always a challenging work, and Nasir Uddin Usuf successfully done it. There are several movies on Liberation War of Bangladesh at 1971. But merely there are one or two of them to pass in terms of both critically and box office need. Aguner Poros Moni of Humayun Ahmed is one to remember, but it was much artistic representation on short platform, where the violence of war was absent. But Guerrilla made it to represent the agony and courage of Bengali to fight against the Pakistani. As Nasir Uddin Usuf was a freedom fighter and also a Guerrilla ,he had a clear conception on this.Also to remember he has worked in Theatre.Nisiddho Loban of Soiyad Samsul Haque is a novel holding the real truth of Liberation War.And the acting of Sotabdi Oadud and Joya Ahsan was exceptional.Though the first half was little quick, on a whole the urban and rural situation at that time was perfectly drawn. For the present and future generation Guerrilla will hold the flag of Liberation War and certainly going to be a landmark. The movie also carry the message how the bustards called Rajakar worked against the Liberation War.