Dear Friend Hitler
3 /10 1 Votes
Release date July 29, 2011 (India) Language Hindi | 2.8/10 IMDb Genre Drama, History, War Cinematography Fuwad Khan Country India | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Release date 29 July 2011 (2011-07-29) Screenplay Rakesh Ranjan Kumar, Rutvik Oza Cast Raghuvir Yadav (Adolf Hitler), (Eva Braun), Aman Verma (Balbir Singh), Avijit Dutt (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi), Nassar Abdulla (Albert Speer), (Magda Goebbels)Similar movies Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations , Downfall , The Great Dictator , The King's Speech , Valkyrie , Lebensborn | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dear Friend Hitler (Hindi: प्रिय मित्र हिटलर), released in India as Gandhi to Hitler, is a multilingual Indian drama film based on the movie " Der Untergang" or " The Downfall" letters written by Mohandas Gandhi to the leader of the Nazi Party and Chancellor of Germany Adolf Hitler. The film, starring Raghubir Yadav as Adolf Hitler and Neha Dhupia as Eva Braun, was directed by Rakesh Ranjan Kumar and produced by Anil Kumar Sharma under the production house Amrapali media vision. It was screened at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival where it received negative reviews. Film Business Asia quoted that "despite the provocative title, the film is not a tribute to the murderous Führer". It premiered in India on 29 July 2011.
Contents
Plot
The film is set during World War II and centres upon the letters written by Mohandas Gandhi (Avijit Dutt) to Adolf Hitler (Raghubir Yadav), and around the relationship of Hitler with his long-term lover Eva Braun (Neha Dhupia), whom he married in his final days in the Berlin bunker in which they died. The film depicts the difference between the ideologies of Gandhi and Hitler and claims the superiority of Gandhism over Nazism.
Cast
Production
Anupam Kher had originally agreed to play the role of Hitler, but he backed out after Jewish organisations in India condemned him for playing the part because of Hitler's massacre of millions of Jews. The filmmakers accused Kher of not returning the ₹4 lakh(400,000 rupees) he had been paid after signing the contract and consequently sued him for ₹2.5 crore (25 million rupees). However, Kher perceived it as a way of filmmakers to promote their film before the release. It is the only mainstream Bollywood film to refer to Indian Legion.
Criticism and controversies
British newspaper, The Guardian, declared the film to be profoundly misguided and to show a shocking ignorance of history. Noah Massil, president of the Central Organization of Indian Jews in Israel (COIJI) stated that "he would write to President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene in order to prevent bringing disrepute to Indian entertainment industry", but the filmmakers claimed that the film does not glorify Hitler, but rather juxtaposes him against Gandhi's ideology of peace.
We clarified that the movie is not about Hitler's ideology, but how his ideology of violence conflicts with Gandhi's ideology of peace. There is no glorification of Hitler's character.
Reception
The film met with negative reviews. The Times of India gave the film 2 stars out of 5, calling it an "unnecessary play with history". The Daily News and Analysis gave the movie one star. NDTV criticised the movie for using Indian actors to play all non-Indian characters, using India itself as a stand-in to Europe, and for its "strands". Koimoi gave the film 0.5/5; although it praised Yadav's performance as Hitler, it criticised the film's script, direction, technical values, soundtrack, and the performance from other actors.
References
Dear Friend Hitler WikipediaDear Friend Hitler IMDb Dear Friend Hitler themoviedb.org