TIFF25: “Bayaan” is a Taut Crime Drama About Abuse
This review was originally published on Film Obsessive.
Power is an enticing drug. It can come by force or persuasion, often using kindness to masquerade the most sinister of intentions. The 2025 Toronto International Film Festival-premiering Bayaan shows how one person can wield immense power over a village under the guise of helping to better the community. In actuality, their intentions are to be beloved so that their violent actions are kept hidden.
Bayaan opens with a group of women dressed in white. Their eyes are closed, hands up to the sky, humming in unison in a large room of spiritual worship. One woman opens her eyes and surveys the scene around her before sneaking away to a printing room. There she finds a stack of pamphlets waiting to be distributed to spread the good word of the Maharaj (Chandrachur Singh). The woman slips in a note that explains the Maharaj is not as kind as the public thinks he is. This note, exposing his abuse, makes it to the police, where the case is assigned to Roohi (Huma Qureshi), a rookie detective and daughter of one of the precinct’s most revered detectives. At almost every turn, Roohi is met with utter praise for the Maharaj, but when one woman is discovered as missing during the initial interrogation, Roohi can’t help but believe something disturbing is happening.
What makes the Maharaj and his cult of devotees so dangerous is that, because of him, many of the women in the village have access to some type of education. The Maharaj, on the surface, has created a haven for these women who were struggling in regular society. He gives them a roof over their heads, food to eat, and a guiding purpose. When he begins to abuse them, they’re backed into a corner. Who are they to question the man who has given them so much? He has made them indebted to him and then used his power to inflict abuse upon them. No cult leader starts out with violence and control. They build up to it. They create a place for people who have nowhere else to go and then they act. Bayaan explains this sinister web perfectly, showing why women would be willing to ignore the allegations. That is the terrible nature of abusive people in positions of power.
courtesy of TIFF
Bayaan unfolds like a standard crime drama. Roohi has the expectations of her father to live up to, and they weigh heavily on her at every turn. Is her difficulty in solving this crime a reflection of only herself, or does it change the way people will look at her father as well? As one might expect, Roohi’s assignment to this case was never about her. It was always about her father and how her ability to solve or not solve this case would impact his life. Above all else, it’s about honor, but honor and truth don’t always go hand in hand. Like most crime thrillers, Bayaan is an indictment of a system that has long been broken and that now requires someone who values truth above all else to repair it.
The word bayaan means testimony, and that doesn’t inherently have a positive or negative connotation. It simply implies a verbal or written statement of an experience. In the world of the justice system, it’s testimonies that cases are built upon. As much as we would all like to believe these testimonies are rooted in truth, there’s always the distinct reality that truth can be bought and sold to the highest bidder. This allows the system to continue to amble along in a broken manner for the benefit of the few at the expense of the underrepresented.
Bayaan is based on a true story, one that has played out in likely every country around the world. It’s just a matter of whether or not the abuser has been exposed. The film’s final show mimics that of Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of a Murder, with our exhausted, hardened detective looking directly at the camera, essentially asking us what role we’re playing in all of this. Are we bystanders or will we refuse to rest until the real story is told?
support your local film critic!
~
support your local film critic! ~
Beyond the Cinerama Dome is run by one perpetually tired film critic
and her anxious emotional support chihuahua named Frankie.
Your kind donation means Frankie doesn’t need to get a job…yet.
Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Letterboxd, YouTube, & Facebook. Check out Movies with My Dad, a new podcast recorded on the car ride home from the movies.