The film's script was created by a group of actors including Vansh Bhardwaj, Tia Bhatia, Janki Bisht and Seema Biswas, through improvisational exercises based on the relatively few snippets of known information about the perpetrators of the attack.[5] Mehta chose to pursue a significant departure from her usual filmmaking style, in part because of the uncharacteristically poor reviews that greeted her previous film Beeba Boys.[5]
Plot
In New Delhi in 2012, a group of six guys raped a young woman and beat her male friend up in a moving bus. On a fictitious reenactment of the perpetrators' life, eleven actors worked together.[6]
Mehta's documentary approach eventually catches up with actual broadcast material, but not enough to excuse the irresponsible use of point-and-shoot cameras that flattens the film's narrative and visual richness.[9][10]
Formally and philosophically, Anatomy of Violence is the biggest gamble of Mehta's career since it foresees uncharted territory for cinema. Is it a docudrama, mockumentary, hybrid, or true crime film? All of these and none of them make up the anatomy of violence. It's Mehta-fiction, to be precise.[11]
