No, not the mythic goddesses of dhan, vidya and shakti but quite the ironic contrary, Teen Behnein is a film about impoverished three sisters, painfully journeying through the day in their lives that is their planned last…
Kundan Shah in his introduction said that he hopes this film will bring at least one target viewer to her senses and avert the crime from happening; the technique he uses to facilitate this is a mixture of both realism and fictional hopefulness. It proved to be an effective use of the medium to communicate the problem, though I have some issues with treatment, which I will raise a little later. However, it was a unique film experience as a result of having had, amongst the audiences, women who belonged to the NGO sector, many who were in touch with the reality of the situation. A heated debate about the reality of the situation, the crux of the problem, intellectualization of issues and gender mud-slinging, amongst many other revelations I think was the entirety of the experience of the issue for me. Polarization of sorts that instantly resulted, men trying to be cheeky and patriarchal, some calling it a non-issue, some saying it was women against women and some others being quite feminist in voicing that dowry’s new avtar is men seeking out women with avenues to earnings. The women on the other hand suggested that solutions and points of interest discussed around the issue were hackneyed, one woman voting out the director’s viewpoint that compulsory women’s education and economic independence would innervate channels to walkout of the ensuing social cardiac arrest for the girl/ woman. Her argument was such: economic freedom was on its way in many sectors, yet we being the way we are, social encrustation click-shut in place would still not allow empowerment. Yet another, furious (as much as I was) about the fact that marriage was made such an important event in a woman’s life, that it become an overwhelming moment blurring her prior and future existence, identity and achievement…the probable demon in the closet. Strongly driven passion with which these women spoke out was a disturbing thing for civic minded in the crowd, causing instant murmurs of madness. It seemed to the sane amongst us apparently, that feminist jingoists were biting off more attention than they deserved at the forum. If one listened closer, a lot of what was being said was not passion-fruit NGO style. The furor and the raging fire-breath tone surely could have been avoided, but there were some real genuine suggestions to what could confute this mayhem of woman-trampling rampant in all sections of modern India.
The reason I have spent reviewing the discussion more than the film is because the success of a socio-political movie, for a country like India, lies in discussions it triggers. I for one am extremely intrigued to discuss the philosophy of the filmmaker and the content depicted, with an honest probing of perceptions amongst the audiences. Shah’s self-confessed ideology about content being larger than artistic and technical endeavor is something that sat smiling to my heart. Personally, film-making in India has turned (and I’m not even going close to mainstream endeavours which in my own words is nothing but bull *#*% but even alternate, “art-film” circles) mostly about technique and utility of sophistication. Sadly however, all attempts to turn up the jazz and keep pace with our western primate brothers are left soulless. I think film in a developing country is a medium that is very labile, and a filmmaker is very responsible for what he needs to say. Leave out the superficial narcissism to your subject and demystify filmmaking.
Ok, so much for that, having said that, paradoxically I wish to argue against the same point made above, but let me clarify. Content is of utmost importance, but what leaves me squirming in my seat is, not an unaesthetic, but a (in the name of sticking to realism and) depicting-truth-as-it-is disempowering theme. Let me tell you what gets me going, a visual journey brimming with novel ways to look at a problem; the term I ‘d like to use is treatment. Content and honesty and social responsibility is all fine but I’m beginning to think that re-hashing in the name of realism, cultural learned helplessness prototypes for characters does nothing useful to the society. It lands up re-enforcing negative role models and cliches of how we think roles within, (ex: lets say a middle class family) needs to be mete out. This era of trying to report the real causes for what-they-are-the-way-they-are, needs to pass. What needs to emerge is a filmmakers weaving of choices that are alternative to the ones chosen by their archetypes in the past, on celluloid or elsewhere in Indian media history. So, build characters that would, in the given situation, deal with it differently or leave the baggage behind and make fresh choices. I’m not asking for a utopian panacea of a movie, but for filmmakers to make a practical leap of faith within their researched backdrop so that empowerment may happen. My argument is, awareness is building, (be it about AIDS, dowry, women’s issues, child labour etc) but the ways of responding to the problem remains folklore since we don’t have tools within our cultural teachings to handle it.
How did Kundan Shah go about the film? Finally I get to the film, but I’ve gotten to the point much earlier, and I hope you agree. Cloyingly poignant but well-crafted narrative is centered on Lata, Machhli (the middle born) and Choti (the little one) three of whom are annoyingly siamese. (Something I credited to craft later and relished based on Shah’s statement that girls with this sort of psychosocial trauma are often autistic and tend to stick to one another relinquishing all individuality). Lata is painfully self-deprecating with all the symptoms of the responsible older one-sobriety and blind sense of being her parents’ bonded labourer. The middle one is supposedly the prettier one (I personally found Lata to be the more attractive one) who many a groom-came-seeking-Lata’s hand-in-marriage drooled over instead. Choti is the rebel-with-reason, impulsive, and of course with the ‘truth-tongue’. What’s intriguing in the plot is the delving into the interchangeable psyche of these three young women, the control they share over one another and the inevitable looming-doom they hold on to but deny self-responsibility in the act. Lata with an MA in literature is so brainwashed that she solely regards her existence to rely on the institution of marriage as a felicity that will bring legitimacy to her life. She seeks a non-existent relationship with the man who came and left. None of the other sisters really try to take her, even for argument’s sake beyond these marriage dreams of hers; on the contrary singing soon-to-be wedding songs to incite her already jarred psyche. Choti, a firebrand with practicality is unable to seek a way out of the romantic deaths the older two have spelt out for themselves (and unconsciously woven the little one’s fate into the web). Her existence, her age, and her character, replete with incomplete social skills and sole dependence on the siblings render her powerless. The three hang off the ceiling, a scene shown suggestively and powerfully. However, Shah doesn’t end with this agony post the knuckle cracking build-up. A surreal appearance of the three on a television show titled the achievers as the post-climax talks strongly of the director’s hope for the future and what he perhaps wishes will shape the end to this blackguard history of our nation, repression and commodification of women.
As a last few comments, I think I now seem to understand KS’s way of crafting this relief moment for the target audience who will perhaps see it as I wish them to. It should function as “stop-and-turn-it-around-moment” from what it fatalistically moved toward, and in doing so, allow fresh ways of response that may shift the power to our inside.
Kundan Shah in his introduction said that he hopes this film will bring at least one target viewer to her senses and avert the crime from happening; the technique he uses to facilitate this is a mixture of both realism and fictional hopefulness. It proved to be an effective use of the medium to communicate the problem, though I have some issues with treatment, which I will raise a little later. However, it was a unique film experience as a result of having had, amongst the audiences, women who belonged to the NGO sector, many who were in touch with the reality of the situation. A heated debate about the reality of the situation, the crux of the problem, intellectualization of issues and gender mud-slinging, amongst many other revelations I think was the entirety of the experience of the issue for me. Polarization of sorts that instantly resulted, men trying to be cheeky and patriarchal, some calling it a non-issue, some saying it was women against women and some others being quite feminist in voicing that dowry’s new avtar is men seeking out women with avenues to earnings. The women on the other hand suggested that solutions and points of interest discussed around the issue were hackneyed, one woman voting out the director’s viewpoint that compulsory women’s education and economic independence would innervate channels to walkout of the ensuing social cardiac arrest for the girl/ woman. Her argument was such: economic freedom was on its way in many sectors, yet we being the way we are, social encrustation click-shut in place would still not allow empowerment. Yet another, furious (as much as I was) about the fact that marriage was made such an important event in a woman’s life, that it become an overwhelming moment blurring her prior and future existence, identity and achievement…the probable demon in the closet. Strongly driven passion with which these women spoke out was a disturbing thing for civic minded in the crowd, causing instant murmurs of madness. It seemed to the sane amongst us apparently, that feminist jingoists were biting off more attention than they deserved at the forum. If one listened closer, a lot of what was being said was not passion-fruit NGO style. The furor and the raging fire-breath tone surely could have been avoided, but there were some real genuine suggestions to what could confute this mayhem of woman-trampling rampant in all sections of modern India.
The reason I have spent reviewing the discussion more than the film is because the success of a socio-political movie, for a country like India, lies in discussions it triggers. I for one am extremely intrigued to discuss the philosophy of the filmmaker and the content depicted, with an honest probing of perceptions amongst the audiences. Shah’s self-confessed ideology about content being larger than artistic and technical endeavor is something that sat smiling to my heart. Personally, film-making in India has turned (and I’m not even going close to mainstream endeavours which in my own words is nothing but bull *#*% but even alternate, “art-film” circles) mostly about technique and utility of sophistication. Sadly however, all attempts to turn up the jazz and keep pace with our western primate brothers are left soulless. I think film in a developing country is a medium that is very labile, and a filmmaker is very responsible for what he needs to say. Leave out the superficial narcissism to your subject and demystify filmmaking.
Ok, so much for that, having said that, paradoxically I wish to argue against the same point made above, but let me clarify. Content is of utmost importance, but what leaves me squirming in my seat is, not an unaesthetic, but a (in the name of sticking to realism and) depicting-truth-as-it-is disempowering theme. Let me tell you what gets me going, a visual journey brimming with novel ways to look at a problem; the term I ‘d like to use is treatment. Content and honesty and social responsibility is all fine but I’m beginning to think that re-hashing in the name of realism, cultural learned helplessness prototypes for characters does nothing useful to the society. It lands up re-enforcing negative role models and cliches of how we think roles within, (ex: lets say a middle class family) needs to be mete out. This era of trying to report the real causes for what-they-are-the-way-they-are, needs to pass. What needs to emerge is a filmmakers weaving of choices that are alternative to the ones chosen by their archetypes in the past, on celluloid or elsewhere in Indian media history. So, build characters that would, in the given situation, deal with it differently or leave the baggage behind and make fresh choices. I’m not asking for a utopian panacea of a movie, but for filmmakers to make a practical leap of faith within their researched backdrop so that empowerment may happen. My argument is, awareness is building, (be it about AIDS, dowry, women’s issues, child labour etc) but the ways of responding to the problem remains folklore since we don’t have tools within our cultural teachings to handle it.
How did Kundan Shah go about the film? Finally I get to the film, but I’ve gotten to the point much earlier, and I hope you agree. Cloyingly poignant but well-crafted narrative is centered on Lata, Machhli (the middle born) and Choti (the little one) three of whom are annoyingly siamese. (Something I credited to craft later and relished based on Shah’s statement that girls with this sort of psychosocial trauma are often autistic and tend to stick to one another relinquishing all individuality). Lata is painfully self-deprecating with all the symptoms of the responsible older one-sobriety and blind sense of being her parents’ bonded labourer. The middle one is supposedly the prettier one (I personally found Lata to be the more attractive one) who many a groom-came-seeking-Lata’s hand-in-marriage drooled over instead. Choti is the rebel-with-reason, impulsive, and of course with the ‘truth-tongue’. What’s intriguing in the plot is the delving into the interchangeable psyche of these three young women, the control they share over one another and the inevitable looming-doom they hold on to but deny self-responsibility in the act. Lata with an MA in literature is so brainwashed that she solely regards her existence to rely on the institution of marriage as a felicity that will bring legitimacy to her life. She seeks a non-existent relationship with the man who came and left. None of the other sisters really try to take her, even for argument’s sake beyond these marriage dreams of hers; on the contrary singing soon-to-be wedding songs to incite her already jarred psyche. Choti, a firebrand with practicality is unable to seek a way out of the romantic deaths the older two have spelt out for themselves (and unconsciously woven the little one’s fate into the web). Her existence, her age, and her character, replete with incomplete social skills and sole dependence on the siblings render her powerless. The three hang off the ceiling, a scene shown suggestively and powerfully. However, Shah doesn’t end with this agony post the knuckle cracking build-up. A surreal appearance of the three on a television show titled the achievers as the post-climax talks strongly of the director’s hope for the future and what he perhaps wishes will shape the end to this blackguard history of our nation, repression and commodification of women.
As a last few comments, I think I now seem to understand KS’s way of crafting this relief moment for the target audience who will perhaps see it as I wish them to. It should function as “stop-and-turn-it-around-moment” from what it fatalistically moved toward, and in doing so, allow fresh ways of response that may shift the power to our inside.
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