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Amu (2005)
Amu (2005) - Review
Amu is the story of a 21-year old American-Indian girl who on her staycation in India uncovers unsettling facts about her past - her roots, her identity, where she belonged. This fiction tale is woven around the true events of the 1984 Sikh genocide. A gripping narrative makes this film a compelling watch. The one hour and twenty minutes had my undivided attention. And the performances only added to it. Konkana Sen leaves me spellbound with every film. She's no different here. She plays any part with so much ease I forget I'm watching a film. Brinda Karat, our firebrand political leader and social activist, plays Konkana's mother and she it does adequately.
The film explores and questions the happenings of the '84 riots, stories of which I've heard in my childhood days. Reason why I could so relate to the film. (Stories of sikhs being pulled out of houses and burnt alive, of hindus helping hide away sikhs in their houses, of wailing women and children, of widowed women being rehabilitated in what's now called the "Widow Colony"). A documentary Widow Colony was also made on this subject in 2005. It was screened at various film festivals abroad.
The censor board created much noise at the time of Amu's theatrical release giving it an A-certificate and cutting out a few scenes/dialogues for reasons obvious (that you'll find out in the film and here but the film-makers gave a raw, unpeppered account of all that had happened in their DVD version in 2008 (which was not allowed to be shown on TV).
Amu premiered at the Berlin and Toronto Film Festivals in 2005. Since then, it has won numerous awards and accolades including 2 National Film Awards in the Best Feature Film and Best Director (English language) categories.
Pat on the back to director Shonali Bose and producer-cum-husband Bedabrata Pain (who directed Chittagong) for showing the audacity to make a film without compromising on the facts. The film steers clear of clichés and only focuses on telling the story. And it does that brilliantly!
Source: http://www.balconyrow.com/2013/07/amu-2005-movie-review.html
The World Before Her (2012)
A necessary watch!
The World Before Her is one of the most significant, thought- provoking films in the recent times - one that shocks, saddens, amazes and leaves you with more questions than answers. It tucks in, within a story, little stories of dreams, despair, courage and hope. It opens your eyes to a world you may not have seen or entirely known before. And yet, presents it all in a non-judgmental light. The director feeds your mind with questions and lets you settle for an answer without imposing or influencing.
Indo-Canadian director Nisha Pahuja documents two contrasting worlds, two conflicting Indias, two diverging ideologies through the eyes of primarily two subjects - Prachi Trivedi, a 20-year old instructor at the Durga Vahini camp, (the women's wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an Indian right-wing nationalist outfit propagating the Hindutva ideology) and Ruhi Singh, a Jaipur-based, 19-year old Miss India aspirant.
The film lets you into their worlds through first-account narratives and base your opinions even as they sway and swerve until it becomes hard to conclude about the two in the same light you set out with. Every subsequent scene is a revelation, adding a new layer to the characters.
There seem no similarities between the two at the outset but as you get to know them closer, you figure both crave one thing - freedom. To be what they choose to be, to live the way they desire to. Not how the world expects them to be.
Even as the film makes you look at the brighter side of the modelling world (like how the beauty industry offers equal platform to men and women) and the darker side of Prachi's world at the start, it scrapes their contrarian sides eventually - exposing the hypocrisies of our society and questioning your judgments about the two girls.
While every scene is memorable and adds value, one that is heartbreaking and deeply disturbing is of the mother of one of the contestants (Pooja Chopra) talking about her broken marriage. Of why she had to walk out of it. I remember reading her story a few years back but hearing it again stirred me to the core.
I don't know why it took me this long to see The World Before Her. I would strongly recommend anyone who still hasn't, to watch it. But more importantly, and as Nisha Pahuja points out in this lovely interview (below) with TBIP, I wish the documentary, beyond just being seen, can actually shake people, particularly men, out of their beliefs and force them to rethink the roles and the rules of our society. "The only way things are going to move forward for women in this country is if men start to understand patriarchy in two ways: one, as a construct that limits them because it gives them a particular role to play and so it limits their freedom, their ability to know who they really are. Two, they need to question the moral wrongness of oppressing somebody based on gender."
Source: http://www.balconyrow.com/2015/09/the-world-before-her-2014- review-nisha-pahuja.html