美国国家公共电台 NPR Feminist Films Push Boundaries In India

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We're going to spend the next few minutes talking movies. If the new "Wonder Woman" film was part of your plan for the weekend and you are wondering just where she came from, we will tell you in a few minutes. But first to India, where one of the great classics of the film industry there, "Mother India," turns 60 this year.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MOTHER INDIA")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #1: (As character, singing in foreign language).

MARTIN: The heroine is a paragon¹ of traditional virtues² and maternal³ strength. Now, critics say Bollywood hasn't changed very much when it comes to depicting⁴ older women, and younger women are still too often props⁵ in the shadow of a male lead. But NPR's Julie McCarthy tells us about a recent crop of film that focuses exclusively on women and their desires.

JULIE MCCARTHY, BYLINE⁶: The light-hearted "Lipstick⁷ Under My Burkha" follows the secret lives of four women.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LIPSTICK UNDER MY BURKHA")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #2: (As character, singing in foreign language).

MCCARTHY: Aahana Kumra portrays⁸ a feisty beautician with irrepressible lust⁹. Her character, a Hindu, has a sizzling affair with a young Muslim photographer whom she cannot marry. And her overt¹⁰ sexual desires are splashed up on the screen with unusual raw humor.

AAHANA KUMRA: Everybody's squirming in their places and going like, oh, my God, like, what are we watching, you know? And I think that’s interesting to watch because art should make you uncomfortable. Or it should make you think.

MCCARTHY: The 60-something character Auntie devours¹¹ pulp¹² fiction loaded with soft porn. She's disgraced when her family discovers that she's been reading steamy passages over the phone to seduce¹³ a swimming instructor¹⁴ half her age. Actress Ratna Pathak plays Auntie and says a widow with a libido¹⁵ is a radical¹⁶ idea in Indian cinema.

RATNA PATHAK: People get a bit shocked by the idea of post-60 generation having a sexual drive at all, which is ridiculous.

MCCARTHY: Debate has swirled¹⁷ around "Lipstick" for this very reason. It reveals unexplored aspects of women's lives. The film premiered in Tokyo and not India. Director Alankrita Shrivastava says India's censorship board refused to certify¹⁸ the film on the grounds it was, quote, "lady-oriented."

ALANKRITA SHRIVASTAVA: That means that you have no idea about the fact that women and men have equal rights in this country. It makes me feel like they don't want women to tell their stories. They want women to keep quiet and shut up. I think patriarchy's alive and kicking, and its roots are really deep.

MCCARTHY: Shrivastava successfully contested the ban, but the board has yet to certify the movie. She says multidimensional roles that project women as complex characters are virtually absent from mainstream¹⁹ Bollywood, which she says persists in portraying²⁰ women as objects.

SHRIVASTAVA: These item songs with these double meaning lyrics²¹ and the camera is randomly²² going up and down a woman's body. It's producers. It's actors. It's directors. Everybody's complicit, actually, in the creation of this kind of culture. And the excuse is always it sells.

MCCARTHY: Director Aparna Sen predicts that her film "Sonata²³" won't make money but break even.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SONATA")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #3: (As character) What kind of people are we?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #4: (As character) Totally decadent²⁴, but happy.

MCCARTHY: Her small-budget English-language production challenges conventional norms of family and friendship. The ensemble²⁵ of three single childless women in middle age appeals to a small urban elite²⁶, but perhaps not mainstream audiences. Director Sen says India has a bias²⁷ against being single.

APARNA SEN: If you're single by choice, they think that something's wrong with you. You're flawed in some way. Just the depiction²⁸ of single women having a blast, having wine, you know, expressing their anxieties and their loneliness - female bonding on cinema is very rare. Very, very rare.

MCCARTHY: Four men were the producers of "Sonata."

SEN: Is that wonderful? Four men who supported women, supported middle-aged²⁹ women (laughter) - four young men, by the way.

MCCARTHY: Sheela Sehgal, a Delhi University literature professor, was among a handful in the theater one recent Friday morning who came to watch "Sonata."

Did it appeal to you?

SHEELA SEHGAL: Absolutely. It's the stark³⁰ reality of Indian women. They're not the younger generation, nor do they feel completely grown old. It's that dilemma³¹. We all will go through that phase. I don't know why they don't make such movies more.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ANAARKALI OF AARAH")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Hello, check. Hello, hello, hello. One, two, four. One, two, four.

MCCARTHY: Perhaps the film that pushes the theme of sexual choice farthest is "Anaarkali Of Aarah." It's a portrait of a singer who earns a living performing suggestive songs before an all-male audience in small town India. She's molested³² by a prominent figure in town but exacts revenge, shaming him in public during a performance. Swara Bhaskar stars as Anaarkali and says mainstream Bollywood wouldn't risk offending middle-class morality with such a character.

SWARA BHASKAR: Anaarkali is promiscuous³³. She's unapologetic about it. She's a threatening person. She's a little - you know, she's a bit mad. And she wins in the end. And she wins by her own means. No man comes and helps her.

MCCARTHY: Sexual violence against women burst out into the open in India after horrific high-profile incidents like the fatal gang rape³⁴ of a young woman in New Delhi in 2012. But the film "Anaarkali" is meant to send a powerful message that no matter how seductive a woman may be or what profession she's in, she still has the right to say no to sexual advances. Bhaskar says without her consent...

BHASKAR: It doesn't matter if she was dancing naked on the stage. You still cannot touch her without her consent.

MCCARTHY: Small films are carving³⁵ out new rules for women in the cinema. It may be a while, though, before India's mass culture, addicted³⁶ to happy ending love stories and fantasy adventures, is ready to accept this path-breaking entertainment. Julie McCarthy, NPR News, New Delhi.