Take a movie, any movie in any language.
Now think of the female characters in the movie.
Think of what would happen to the plot of the movie, if the character did not exist. Will the story still survive?
Given how strong a medium movies are, it often surprises me that women are so inconsequential to the plots of most (almost all) movies. I was thinking of my favourite movies in all languages and almost all of them could be made without any women in them!! (I am not taking into account ‘regular’ romances - not ‘Brokeback Mountain’ or ‘Farewell my concubine’ - where there is a heroine solely to complete the love story or love triangle. I am also not talking about the mandatory mother characters that die in the arms of the son in the end. (Completely off track - try this link. The portion about Nirupa Roy had me in splits and I have read this one again and again and again!!)
I often get into this mode of thinking about such absolutely useless topics not only when I have nothing better to do, but also when I have loads of pending work! But thats just me and my almost always idle mind!!. If art reflects life, how come most of the interesting stories portrayed in movies seldom require a female character to make it complete? Thats not the case in real life!! How many movies have realistic portrayals of women and have them play central characters (No Vaijayanthi IPS or other Vijayshanthi types please!!)? Or even if not realistic, atleast relatable characters?
These questions had been on my mind for quite a while, till I watched a 2006 Spanish movie, titled ‘Volver’ by Pedro Almodovar. I had heard about the movie because of the Oscar buzz surrounding it. The stills for the movie did not look very inviting. The image of Penelope Cruz wearing a low cut dress and wearing red lipstick, did not seem like an interesting prospect. However, since I was watching other Oscar nominees for that year and also since I had started watching foreign language movies recently, I rented this one. Only after the movie ended, did I realize that there was just 1-2 male characters in the movie with very little screen time. Otherwise the movie was ruled by women of different ages. Unlike most of the big budget hollywood flicks, this movie had a strong story, even stronger characters and was very touching at the same time. The movie explores mothers of different ages and shows how times change but some things like a mother’s love for her daughter and her protective nature never change. The movie, like our good old Indian movies has a lot of other things, black humour, emotions, maternal love, a murder and yes, even a song !!
After watching this one, when I spotted another movie titled ‘All about my mother’ by the same director, I rented it without any second thoughts. This was even more beautiful. The movie is dedicated to every one who is a woman at heart, even if physically they are different from a ‘normal’ woman. Once again, this movie has a lot of really strong women and men, who are women at heart. Apart from the central character Manuela played by Cecilia Roth, the movie has a lot of interesting characters including a tranvestite prostitute, a pregnant nun and a lesbian actress who Manuela comes across in her search for her lost husband. Again, a really touching movie.
A word of caution though, both the above mentioned movies have some strong adult theme and content and are not suitable for all types of audiences. After this I started exploring Almodovar’s older movies and gave up after watching 2-3 because of the overdose of homoerotic content!!
Are there any more movies that you can think of that have used women as more than props (wives, mothers, sisters, girlfriends etc of the hero)? My cousin recommended an old movie by Gulzar called Ijaazat and I am yet to watch that. Any other recommendations?
