This film, which was shortlisted for the best film in the "Future of Asia" at the 29th Tokyo International Film Festival, almost failed to be released locally.
In April 2017, the Central Committee for Film Classification in India (CBFC) refused to classify the film. This is actually equivalent to the " ban " in China. The reason is that the film has a clear "lady oriented" tendency. , Including "sex scenes" and "erotic dialogues", describing women as "a fantasy higher than life." With many efforts, the film was finally released on July 21, 2017.
The reason for being banned corresponds to the content of the film. How afraid of those in power that women have the right to speak, awakening those still sleeping companions. Even people who haven't watched the video will probably smile in admiration when they see its poster.
The film focuses its attention on women of four different age groups in Indian towns and villages . In this dark and suffocating society where every move of women is regulated, they secretly release their desires and seek freedom and happiness.
The film is actually quite ambitious. The stories of the four women represent ordinary Indian women of different ages from 20/30/40/50, trying to outline the awakened Indian women through the trivial overstepping of regulations in their ordinary lives. Group portrait.
This is why their stories are not thrilling. They are all ordinary people, and their every move does not seem to matter, but if all women start to resist in this way, then equality may come.
20
Rehana Abidi, who is about 20 years old, is still a college student and dreams of becoming a singer. Because she came from a Muslim family , at the most beautiful age, she needed to cover herself with a black robe, with only one pair of eyes exposed.
This is not her belief, her choice.
When she came to school, the first thing was to take off her black robe. When she faces the boy she likes, she will say, "I don't wear that kind of robe that only shows eyes now." This is not just a lie, it is her voice.
Her parents are extremely harsh on her discipline. Even if she dances up and dances at the neighbor’s engagement ceremony, she will be scolded without shame and shame. Her day-to-day life can only be studying and helping with the family business.
But she longs for freedom, longs for entertainment, longs for love, longs for a life that a woman should have .
She chose to steal. Lipstick, dress, boots... She satisfies her desires by improper means. This is also her self-harm-like rebellion, rebelling against her parents' set of rules that must be followed under high pressure.
On campus, she spoke out at the protests held by women to fight for the right to wear jeans.
Her life is divided. There are two Rehana, one in a black burqa and one showing youthful vigor. She switched between the two identities freely, secretly seeking the life she wanted.
However, when reality shines into her life, her theft is exposed in full view, her lover departs due to deception, she also loses the opportunity to learn and is imprisoned at home...
30
The beautician Leela, a young woman waiting to be married, is passionate and bold, pursuing the life she wants. She has a lover and a business plan for each other's future. But she also has a fiance, a fiance appointed by her mother. She is faced with a life choice, whether to accept an arranged marriage .
On the night of the engagement, Leela had sex with her lover and recorded it all. If her lover dared to betray her, she would upload the video to the Internet and ruin him.
Leela's career setting raises a real problem. In order to meet the expectations of men, women are very capable of dealing with themselves, (for this reason, the popularity of weight loss, beauty, and plastic surgery); while men seldom pay attention to their appearance and body management.
Leela didn't like her fiance, and the rude sound he made while drinking tea bored her. But she had to accept this fiance who could buy a house for her and her mother.
She thought about starting a business with her own hands and supporting her and her mother. But in order to survive, the mother who has been a humiliating nude model for more than ten years does not want her daughter to fall to her level one day.
But when her fiance took her to visit their new house and told her that she would never have to leave this house in this life. Leela was still terrified. She tried to elope with her lover, but she was scolded by her lover as a "golden girl".
The frustrated Leela had to accept this arranged marriage, but found out that his fiance was a rather considerate and good man. Just when everything seemed to be heading for the light, the fiancé discovered the sex video between her and her lover...
40
Married Shirin Aslam, a mother with three children alone , and a very capable salesperson. But in the eyes of her husband, she is just a housework nanny and a tool for venting sexual desire .
Her husband worked in Saudi Arabia and returned to India for only two weeks a year. She gave birth to three children and miscarried three times. He never wears condoms, never caress Shirin, just care about his own pleasure.
During sex every night, Shirin had to take medicine for contraception in addition to enduring pain. The doctor warned her that her uterus had been infected and she would need to undergo surgery if she continued to rely on drugs, and she could only use condoms.
Shirin, the best salesperson who can sell anything, can't let the husband who thinks "buying a condom is shameless" bring it.
Shirin's excellent work performance gave her a chance to be promoted, but she hesitated. If she accepts the promotion, she must tell her husband the fact that she is working outside. This obviously violates the husband's thinking that the woman can only stay at home.
When Shirin was struggling, she discovered that her husband, who had lost his job, had a lover. And he is gentle to his lover in every way.
Shirin accepted the promotion. She did not endure silently, but found her husband's lover to show her attitude. The husband was obviously angry, Shirin finally resisted, but was raped by her husband...
50
The 55-year-old Auntie is a widow . She is the aunt of all the population, taking care of everything in Hawai Manzil Palace. She is respected, but she has lost her gender identity . She is just the aunt of the housekeeper.
But after all, she is a woman with desire. She tried to talk to the repairman, but was inadvertently hindered. The 56-year-old widower has a lot of life to live and should find a new wife between 35 and 40. But widows of the same age are thought to live their lives on their own, and their desires are ignored.
The aunt can only vent her desires in fantasy. She is immersed in the little yellow book "Lipstick Dreams" that she secretly read.
Until one day, the young and vivid swimming coach who exuded hormonal aura asked her name, and the name of that aunt belonged to her as a woman. She is Usha, not someone's aunt.
Usha couldn't help being obsessed with this young man who didn't call her an aunt, and the lust that dared to resolve with the little yellow book found a vent. Usha turned into the heroine Rosy in the little yellow book, and made pornographic phone calls to the young man.
However, when the swimming coach was disappointed to find that Rosy was not the young woman he had imagined. He tore the little yellow book to pieces and scolded Usha angrily, "Have you ever looked in the mirror? You have never been Rosy."
Usha is no longer regarded as everyone's aunt, and those who once respected her and obeyed her cursed "being old and disrespectful", "shameless" and "dishonorable" and drove her out of Hawai Manzil Palace.
The stories of the four women were linked by Usha reading the voice-over of the little yellow book "Lipstick Dreams." Finally, when Usha was condemned and driven away by the crowd, the four women gathered together and finished the book.
Regrettably, although the creator has already confessed that the four women all live in a place called Hawai Manzil Palace, the last scene of the film is the first real intersection of these four women.
Hawai Manzil Palace , this tenant is fixed, familiar with each other, and the setting of a group rented hotel like a big family does not play its ingenuity .
The creator did not connect each other in the story of the four people , only through two scenes to complete Leela and Shirin's emotion, Shirin and Usha's mutual help.
Furthermore, through two scenes, it has been pointed out that Hawai Manzil Palace is facing the background of being demolished and built into a modern shopping mall; and the four women in the film have an interesting intersection with existing modern shopping malls in the township. The creator can go further, giving the Hawai Manzil Palace a meaning of contrast between the old and the new . But as far as the information given in the current film is concerned, this suggestion is too vague, and any association is an over-interpretation.
The abrupt cessation of the film also left a lot of controversy. Although the four women have voiced resistance in their lives, their ending is undoubtedly bad. Are the creators desperate for this resistance?
Obviously not.
Just like Rosy in the little yellow book, "Now, she no longer quietly stares at the bouquet, she invites to call her Prince Charming publicly, and she no longer hides her desires."
Only by tearing up all the disguise can true freedom be drawn, and the trough in front of us is only the darkness before dawn. This is the true attitude of the creators.
This is reminiscent of the bridge setting of the power outage in the movie. Just after everyone took a group photo, it suddenly fell into darkness. Usha said this when he was talking to the repairman.
Perhaps it is this ability to adapt, women are willing to endure unfair treatment, forgetting that they can actually seek light.
But when the second darkness comes (the encounter of the four women at the end of the film), these dreamy women who awakened with their desires will no longer adapt to the darkness...
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