1987 – A small town in Bengal: A 6-year-old started crying after watching the climax of “Pather Panchali”, a film by Satyajit Ray. Why did Durga have to die leaving Apu alone? She sobbed inconsolably! The first poster that she pasted on the walls of her room after a couple of years was that of Ray.
1995 – Kolkata: The teenager had come with her family to watch “Bombay” by Mani Ratnam. Till then, she neither understood riots nor the Hindu-Muslim divide.
2001 – Kolkata: She had come with a gang of friends to watch “Lajja”. She was mesmerised by the narrative. Most of the boys in that group kept joking about how the movie should have had a disclaimer of ‘for women, by women’. She found this quite absurd though.
2003 – Delhi: “Gangaajal” had been so thought-provoking that she kept wondering if the only way to deal with criminals was through mob violence.
2006 – Bangalore: By the end of the movie “Rang De Basanti”, she had engraved these lines in her heart – “Zindagi jeene ke do hi tareeke hote hai. Ek jo ho raha hai hone do, bardaasht karte jao. Ya phir zimmedari uthao usse badalne ki.”
2012 – Mysore: Vidya Bagchi in “Kahaani” was her model of women empowerment.
2017 – Kolkata again: “Bareilly Ki Barfi” and “Shubh Mangal Saavdhan” were proof of changing times where the parents of the female protagonists had moved beyond the stereotypical strict dad-mom sobbing genre. Nutan Kumar (aka Newton) showed what it meant to play by the rules and yet fulfill one’s duties. Sulu in “Tumhari Sulu” taught how to find happiness even in the smallest of things. “Chef” brought on screen the maturity of a relationship between ex-spouses trying to raise a child sans gender-stereotyping. “A Death in the Gunj” was about the plight of a soft and sensitive man in a society that associated men with machismo.
That’s a brief timeline of my tryst with movies as a viewer. Growing up, I had been so influenced by the characters on screen that I believed they had an ability to create a change with the correct message. The recently-released “Padman” is a perfect example of my point.
When my transition from banking to writing began towards the end of the last year, I made a conscious decision to review movies through a social lens. While I ensured that I’d captured the mandatory details of plot, actors and factors that worked in favor and against the movie, my signature twist was the last, ‘add-on’ paragraph which spoke about the social relevance of the movie.
Around 1,000+ Indian movies are released every year, out of which over 250 are from Bollywood. The reach for these movies are in the billions. While the primary purpose of a film is to entertain, it is difficult to ignore the huge impact they have on the lives of people and their behavior. This is what leads to the concept of ‘responsible entertainment’.
When I started writing, I realised that it was difficult for me to watch every release for the purpose of a review. Not every genre appealed to my sense and sensibility. I started selecting movies whose subject and content made me believe that my time and money have been put to good use. So a “Chef”, “Raid” or “Hichki” is what I chose to watch. When I write about my experience of these movies, I ensure that I also include factors that touched me the most as an audience and the impact of voicing out such issues.
There are a few topics that stay timelessly relevant – corruption, abuse, domestic violence, murder, rape, terrorism being some of them. Not much has changed over time. In fact, some of these issues have only worsened with every passing year.
Then, there are issues that have found a voice and audience only recently – like menstruation (“Padman”), issues pertaining to the LGBT+ community (“Aligarh”), and the sexual desires of women (“Lipstick Under My Burkha”).
Finally there are subjects that have still not been touched upon – like female genital mutilation and mastectomy.
Whenever a movie is made on any of the topics that are either relevant or have been hushed and shushed, the most important effect it has is highlighting the option of starting a conversation around it. Unless we get talking about such issues and accept their existence, how do we find a solution to fix it? This is where movies, with their widespread penetration and preponderance of actors, have a role to play.
Movies are a reflection of the society, just as the society provides food for thought for the script of a film. They need to work in tandem for making lives better. “Toilet – Ek Prem Katha” even found a mention in a tweet by Bill Gates for the novelty of its purpose, while “Padman” forced the government’s hand in installing sanitary pad vending machines in a few cities.
As a writer, my responsibility is to highlight the societal impact of a movie through my words. For me, films are not just another medium of amusement. Instead, they are a medium of change via their extensive reach. My words are the media that bridge the diverse perspectives of entertainment with the intention and underlying messages in movies.
YKA turns 10 years this 31st March. As one of the newest contributors here, I dedicate my post to this bold and non-judgemental platform that has helped me find my voice through the channel of words.