Features
Recent Indian films outclass most Hollywood movies
I came to the conclusion conveyed in my title this Sunday after seeing a couple of movies a week – a justifiable time-spender at my age. I watched Julia Roberts in a film about breaking up a marriage – My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997) after watching a Hindi film and found the Hollywood film trite and trivial – all froth, bubble and glamour against the starkly realistic Hindi film. Why? The Indian films I have watched recently have all dealt cleverly with Indian social norms, customs or beliefs. Messages have been conveyed skillfully and adroitly, with no in-your-face sermonizing. I also seem to relate more to the background, clothes, even acting styles of the Hindi films which certainly are not those Bollywood blockbusters directed and produced for mass entertainment.
General family norm
The very best was the Mira Nair directed adaptation of Vikram Seth’s huge novel published in 1993: A Suitable Boy. The film was screened in 2020 with BBC co-producing. Entertainment was its top priority and the custom/norm presented principally was that a young girl needed to be married off and the usual practice of a mother’ quest for a suitable marriage partner, roping in others to help her.
The story line goes thus: in 1951 when girls had more freedom and went in for higher studies, vivacious Lata Mehra is in university and develops a relationship with a Muslim co-student. Knowing her mother wants her to consent to an arranged marriage, she suggests they elope. Caution and seeing things clearer, he refuses a sudden decision. Finally after much searching, she consents to a suitable, simple man who works for a Czech shoe factory in India.
The themes Seth deals with are limited autonomy to girls of good families; marriage being the be all and end all in mothers’ views for their daughters. With this, he introduces sub themes – the Muslim Hindu conflict; rich men’s penchant for mistresses, lovely courtesans who live in luxury through their availability and singing prowess; and justice and injustice. The film is a brilliant classic for all time.
Dalits and discrimination
These two issues and concerns were so successfully portrayed in the documentary titled Daughters of Destiny which Academy Award winning director Vanessa Roth filmed for seven years chronicling the growing up of four girls living through term time at Shanthi Bhavan and returning to their slum homes for holiday months. Shanthi Bhavan is the home offered to 24 Dalit children each year – 12 boys, 12 girls – from the age of four to adulthood and even funding university education.
Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project was the brain child of Dr Abraham George, Indian American businessman, assisted by his brother Ajit. In 1995 the non-profit organization – The George Foundation – was set up and two years later Shanti Bhavan opened its welcoming doors to very poor, outcast Dalit children. Based in Bangalore, Karnataka, it has at present 300 students who are taught in the English medium. I wrote about this film earlier. The success of helping Dalit youth to integrate themselves in society is wonderful. The messages were strong: all are equal; helping and sharing is humaneness; caring and guiding reap good results.
Widows and stigmatization
A 2018 film directed with a sure hand, produced with sophistication and acted with constraint and skill was Sir. Directed by Rohena Gera it is a romantic film which subtly deals with two Indian slur-issues: the negative, looked down upon status of widows and social class divisions.
12th Fail
Ashwin returns to Mumbai from New York to support his father’s building business and to get married. However, the marriage does not take place. The live-in maid, Ratna, hired by his mother in anticipation of the marriage, is kept on. She is no more than a shadow in Ashwin’s flat, running it perfectly while cooking and serving his meals, and having a life of her own in spare hours with another maid. Ratna’s ambition is to be a dress designing seamstress. Getting to know this as she asks permission to be out of the flat for afternoons, Ashwin buys her a sewing machine.
Things come to a head when she is asked by his mother to cook and serve at a party. She does it but inadvertently spills a dish on a socialite who berates her. Ashwin is upset, further concerned when he sees Ratna with other servants seated on the floor of the kitchen having dinner. She tells him she was widowed at 17 and ostracized in her village. Her aim is to educate her sister and better herself. He realizes he is in love with her But contains himself. Much later, he kisses her.
She leaves her job and his flat and moves to her sister’s slum tenement; a relationship not being at all suitable or possible. He tells his father he intends marrying Ratna, goes back to New York after arranging her apprenticeship with a dress designer. Ratna settles to a poor life again. He phones her. She who always called him Sir, realizing his sincerity and her love for him, addresses him as Ashwin. The film cleverly ends at this point. No obvious comment on issues dealt with but succeeded with finesse.
Corruption vs Honesty
12th Fail – a 2023 Hindi film subtitled in English was truly remarkable. It is directed, produced and written by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, based on the non-fiction book by Anurag Pathak of Manoj Kumar Sharma, born and bred in dacoit infested Chambal where corruption is rife and even school students are encouraged to cheat to pass the all-important Grade 12 exam. Manoj’s father being totally honest is dismissed from his job for hitting his corrupt boss with his shoe.
Sir
Manoj, influenced by a straight police officer, does not cheat at his exam. He fails while others pass. Determination and extreme hard living, but helped by friends, Manoj does pass the final exam to enter the Indian Police Service. The man in the interview board rejects him as 12th Failed but the women pick up his honesty. Manoj returns home in his police uniform.
The film received wide acclaim and won five Filmfare awards for best director, film and actor.
Other social issues
I fail to recall the name of the Hindi film that dealt with child abuse, trafficking and prostitution, but it was excellent. The story wove around a woman rights activist who met a young girl who had been traumatized, but kept mum. The activist felt impelled to investigate further and uncovered thugs in cohorts with the management of a home for destitute children. The girl tells her tale, many women and children are saved and the crime perpetrators duly punished.
Martial violence is the social theme dealt with in Darling. This very pretty and very young girl succumbs to the violence of her husband, by nature violent but taking to excessive alcohol intake too. The film started off well, but the girl turns tables and keeps husband captive in their flat with her mother living in the same building, conniving. The story turned farcical, lightweight and rather ludicrous. I gave up watching it.
To look forward to To Kill a Tiger
directed by Nisha Pahuja is about a family in Jharkamd, India, who campaign for justice after their teenage daughter is brutally raped. Deepa Mehta, Dev Patel, Priyanka Chopra, among others, were co-producers. It was released in Toronto in 2022 and in US in 2023 with
The film was nominated as Best Documentary Feature for an Oscar this year, competing with 20 Days in Mariupol (Ukraine war), Bobi Wine: the People’s President, Four Daughters and The Eternal Memory. The war film won the Oscar; however honour enough for Canada and India to be nominated.
Streaming on Netflix and widespread screening was delayed till the 96th Oscar ceremony this year was over. Hence here is a film to be seen, again assuredly dealing with skill, sensitivity and finesse on a scourge rampant in India: rape.