New Delhi, March 28 -- A movie becomes more violent the further it gets from movie violence. Movie violence insulates. It excites, titillates, comforts. It reassures audiences that what they're seeing isn't real and need not be taken too seriously. A realistic punch in the face registers more strongly than a hero sending half a dozen bodies flying through the air. Movie violence has no wish to distress or dismay, or to remind you of violence in the real world.

The opening credits of Prithviraj Sukumaran's L2: Empuraan, a sequel to his Lucifer (2019), show the burning of a train compartment with Hindu passengers in 2002, as it was in Godhra, Gujarat that year. The sequence that follows shows the bloody reprisal, as Hindu mobs go on a ramp...