With the rapid economic development in recent years, the consciousness of Indian women has gradually risen, and many feminist films have appeared, such as "Moon River" which criticizes the clean rules of widows, "Pink Horror" which criticizes materialized women, and even promotes women. "Wrestling!" that can realize personal value "Dad", "Bath to the Fire", which praises the power of beautiful women, etc., are very enjoyable for the audience to watch.
It can be said that high-quality feminist masterpieces have supported half of the Indian film reputation!
Today, I will introduce another Indian feminist film-"The Mystery of the Child Bridegroom", which is still a horror film!
Satya, a young Indian nobleman, finished his five-year study abroad career and returned to his old home in his hometown. This is a magnificent private palace where his brothers-in-law lived.
Satya was surprised to find that in the past five years, many things have happened in the ancient house. The second brother died suddenly. It is said that the death scene was full of blood footprints. The second brother's wife was sent to the widow monastery and lived a life of misery. , The eldest brother has been out for a long time, and the whole house is actually under the control of the young sister-in-law Bubu.
Bubu is a child bride and married when she was very young. Her husband is Satya's eldest brother, who is dozens of years older than her. Because of the similar age, Boob has always been close to Satya. They not only played games together, but also wrote novels together, and they were very close.
In Satya’s impression, Bubu was a well-behaved and pleasant girl, but after returning this time, he found that Bubu had changed. Although she became more and more charming and charming, her eyes were no longer gentle, always With a cold smile. In addition, there is a strange doctor beside Bubu. He often goes in and out of the ancient house and has an ambiguous relationship with Bubu.
Just when Satya was puzzled, murders occurred one after another in the village. The dead were all men. They either married child brides or used violence against their wives. It can be seen that the murderers had obvious selectivity, but the villagers all believed that , This was done by the witch in the forest.
What has actually happened?
Obviously this is a horror film intertwined with ancient legends, and it is a relatively common routine, but the overall look is not terrifying (at least it did not scare me).
On the contrary, it is very depressing.
With Satya’s in-depth investigation, terrible truths have emerged one by one. Bubu has experienced painful experiences unimaginable by ordinary people in the past five years-her husband committed brutal domestic violence against her because of jealousy, and even She broke her legs, and the uncle, Satya’s second brother, raped her day after day. Since Satya was far away in London, Bubu had to gritted her teeth alone and endured it all, but she His mind is gradually distorted.
Gradually, she became a murderous forest witch. The methods were so venomous that Satya once thought that the murderer could not be a woman, and she could not stop her killing completely, and the maiden of the flower season no longer existed.
Under the horror of the film, he strongly criticized the deformed child brides-in-law custom. If it weren’t for this custom, Bobu would have grown up happily at home, and when he grows up, he would choose an age-matched partner instead of serving the old man or even becoming a whole Family sex slaves.
The custom of child marriage has been popular in India for thousands of years. Even now, especially in some economically underdeveloped areas, it is still very popular. Girls are often only four or five years old when they marry. It is good for physical and mental health, and many bridegrooms are very old. Girls often start to be widows before they are consummated, leading a life of misery and loneliness all their lives. In order to make a living, they will even become sex slaves like Boob.
In the movie "Moon River", the little girl Chuya became a widow at the age of eight. She shaved her hair and put on a white gauze, and lived a lonely life in the widow's convent. Not only that, due to lack of income, the old widow in the courtyard also sent Chuya to the home of an Indian nobleman to provide sexual services, causing her life's nightmare.
It can be said that the custom of child marriage is inhumane, causing many chain social problems and serious violations of women's human rights.
In this regard, the Indian government has always wanted to take action. In 1929, they promulgated a decree prohibiting child marriage. A few years after achieving independence, the Indian government revised the decree again to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 15 to 18, and for men from 18 years of age. I'm 21 years old.
However, all laws and regulations have become a dead letter in the face of strong traditional customs, and child marriage is still repeatedly prohibited. Why? This again involves another Indian custom-the dowry system. When Indian women get married, they must give the man a generous dowry, and the older the bride is, the more dowry must be given. On the contrary, the less, if it is a child marriage, the dowry can even be exempted. Therefore, many families from poor families will give their daughters the first choice for child marriage.
In addition, the classic Hindu book "The Code of Manu" also encourages early marriage and stipulates that the minimum marriage age for believers is 8 years old. It also preaches that 30-year-old men should marry 12-year-old girls, and 24-year-old men should marry 8-year-old girls. Therefore, many devout Hindus tend to have child marriages for the sake of their faith.
It can be seen that there are economic factors and religious reasons behind this, but in the final analysis, they are all because of patriarchy.
The film does not mention Bubu's family situation, but from the perspective of choosing such an old husband for her, her parents are mostly people who do not care about the happiness of their daughters because of the money. Therefore, when Satya offered to send Bubu back to her family's home, she showed a bleak look. It was no longer her home.
Of course, what makes Bubu feel most uncomfortable is that Satya didn’t realize that she was a victim of child marriage, and just mechanically accused him of murder from the legal level. Bubu had so much admiration for him and regarded him as a My only hope in my in-laws. Satya's attitude became the last straw that overwhelmed the camel, and finally made Bubu choose the path of self-destruction.
In an inhumane system, the law even has a false name and becomes an accomplice of bad guys.
The film uses a large area of red filter in many pictures, giving people a magical and suffocating sense of unreality, and more and more highlight the repressive theme of the story, making the audience feel the same as the hell-like child bride-in-law of the world. Life.
So, rather than saying that this is a horror movie, I am more inclined to classify it as a bitter movie.
However, although the concept of the film is good, the degree of completion is relatively low, and many useless fragmented plots occupy the not-so-rich film time, resulting in insufficient emotional portrayal of the characters, such as Bubu and Satya, Bubu and The relationship between doctors and others is very scribbled, and the lack of depiction of the psychological changes in the oppression of Bubu has severely weakened the expression of the subject. In addition, the reminiscence of revealing the truth is too straightforward and lacks the pleasure and shock of decryption.
In short, this movie could have been better.
It is worth mentioning that both "Moon River" and "Mystery of the Child Brideg-In-Law" were posted before India's independence. I don't know whether it is implying that these traditions are backward past tense, or deliberately neglecting the dissatisfaction. Right now, it's really intriguing
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