Director Wu Tianming's camera language is not only exquisite, but also quite talented. Overall, the structure of the story is neat, the line design shows the screenwriter's skills, and the details are full and moving. The only thing that makes me play a bit is the performance and lines of some actors. The sense of drama is too heavy, such as the actor who played the teacher. In contrast, the commercial gene of "Dangal" limits its height, from the depth of the script to the performance of the visual language, it can only be regarded as an upper-middle level. To put the two together, it is extremely unfair to use the same artistic standard, because they are works produced from two completely different production mechanisms.
But just looking at the portrayal of the female characters in both films, I prefer the depiction of the relationship between men and women in dangal. First of all, in a society full of saying "you can't" to women, this is a work that keeps saying "you can" to women.
As for the daughters' lives as wrestlers, whether they have been deprived of their rights as "housewives" is a false proposition.
Just as in places like China where women cannot have complete autonomy over their wombs, when the society does not allow you to bear children, childbirth is a right; when the society forces you to bear children, not childbirth is a right. In an Indian village where child marriage is prevalent, four girls who practice wrestling see another possibility in life. This is the right. This gate, which was lifted by the shoulders, was pressed on their stubborn and stubborn father.
This father is not a feminist, nor can he be. But he didn't see his daughter as a mere tool when he started the crazy project that started from a dream. It is very clear in the film that if the children are not gifted, he will give up within a year. In the film, he is a strict coach and a loving father. The two identities sometimes conflict, and he will be soft-hearted in the face of children's tears, but he can only hold his face, because he understands that it is necessary to resist the whole society's attitude towards women's wrestling. Prejudice requires uncompromising determination. In the process of training, the most important thing he taught the girls was not wrestling skills, but the courage to challenge and the joy of breaking through oneself. What did his daughter see when she won the gold medal? The cheering audience, the approval of the father, must also have the confidence to hold the future in their own hands.
The relationship between the daughter and the father in the film raises a question for the audience: When women strive for a wider living environment for themselves, what role do men play in their individual lives? In "Changing the Face", the dog boy resisted his inferior position in the patriarchal structure (ask the face-changing king where he is worse than the boy baby?), but this grievance was covered by "grandfather-grandson affection", and finally through the Sacrifice oneself to "filial piety", a symbol of the patriarchal structure, to gain social recognition, became an exception (reconciled with the face-changing king, and received his skills). The role of the dog baby did not grow in the film, and her position in the patriarchal social structure has never changed. Just as the widow committed suicide in exchange for a chastity arch and engraved a name that could not be written into the genealogy on a stone, it seems to have been recognized by the power, but it was only included as its own propaganda teaching material by the power.
The role of the father in "Dangal", of course, represents patriarchy in family relations, but above this power structure, there is a higher pursuit of value, which is shown in the film as a sports spirit that never gives up. This is the source of his courage to challenge social conventions and bureaucracy, and it also makes the father figure shine with idealism. (Because of this, I think the biggest problem with the film is that it mixes sportsmanship with nationalism, which weakens the critical power of the work.)
In the film, a plot where a father is defeated by his daughter is specially set up, on the surface, it seems to pave the way for later proving that "the father is always right". But it can also be understood that after women were liberated from the pressure of patriarchy, they faced the oppression of the state apparatus. When she was helpless, she turned to her father for help. The defeated father did not refuse because his gender authority was challenged. The father and daughter joined forces to successfully "break out" from the bureaucratic machine in the pursuit of a common dream and a new understanding of each other.
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