Wave of women centric Bollywood movies a welcome trend

New Delhi, March 7 – “No One Killed Jessica”, “Mirch”, “Turning 30″ and “7 Khoon Maaf” – all women-centric films in the last few months show the female leads in strong and powerful roles. Filmmakers and actors hope this trend continues in future.

 

On the silver screen women are usually seen as a helpless mother, submissive wife, devoted girlfriend, overcaring sister, daughter or a vamp, but directors like Vishal Bharadwaj and Alankrita Shrivastava are trying to break the mould and present women in a more realistic, vibrant and unconventional way.

One-film-old Rajkumar Gupta’s “No One Killed Jessica” was an attempt to bring alive the struggle of Sabrina Lall’s fight with the Indian judiciary for years to get justice for her murdered sister.

Starring Vidya Balan and Rani Mukerji, the movie created a buzz as it was inspired by the 1999 murder of model Jessica Lall and the director was never apprehensive that his film won’t do well without a strong male character.

“The protagonists in my movie were two leading ladies who were very powerful in whatever they did. It’s not easy to make a film on such a theme, but times are changing and people are accepting it with open arms,” Gupta told IANS.

Director Vinay Shukla, best known for his 1999, multiple National Award-winning project “Godmother”, is confident there will be more successful women-centric films in the years to come.

“At the moment, the number of women-centric movies is less, but it will grow with time because actresses nowadays have got huge potential to run a movie on their shoulders much like their male counterparts,” said Shukla, whose latest film “Mirch” dealt with four stories of women’s emancipation.

Other movies that gave importance to women character is Bharadwaj’s “7 Khoon Maaf”, inspired by Ruskin Bond’s short story “Susanna’s Seven Husbands”, which saw Priyanka Chopra bumping off her seven husbands, while debutant Alankrita Shrivastava’s “Turning 30″ was a take on the dilemma of women at the milestone age.

Talking about her experience of working as the leading lady in “Turning 30″, actress Gul Panag said: “‘Turning 30′ was all about a woman’s perspective and being a woman, I loved shooting every part of the movie as it was an honest attempt. We gave it our best and I am proud of the movie.”

Earlier too, films like “Dor” (2006), “Silsilay” (2005), “Tehzeeb” (2003), “Pinjar” (2003), “Chameli” (2003), “Satta” (2003), “Filhaal” (2002), “Zubeidaa” (2001) “Lajja” (2001), “Chandni Bar” (2001) and “Fiza” (2000) brought the woman into the spotlight – all these films got critical acclaim, but they didn’t turn out to be a commercial hit.

Shukla pointed out: “It’s not that the trend of women playing the main character has come into practice now. It has been happening for quite long. From Meena Kumari in ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’, Nargis in ‘Mother India’, Nutan in ‘Bandini’ to Hema Malini in ‘Seeta aur Geeta’ and Meenakshi Seshadri in ‘Damini’, these ladies always managed to make an impression on the audience.”

“The number of such movies has in fact decreased in today’s time but the reason could be that women-centric movies are distinctive and appeals only to a specific audience,” he added.

Veteran actress and censor board chief Sharmila Tagore said: “I feel more women-centric films will come with time. But we shouldn’t complain because it’s the same the world over – it is indeed, the male characters that are in prominence even in Hollywood. So we shouldn’t fuss.”

The 64-year-old, who has been in the industry for over five decades, feels “No One Killed Jessica” is the only woman-centric movie to have worked at the box office.

“Only one women-centric film has sort of worked – ‘No One Killed Jessica’; so one shouldn’t get too excited about the phenomenon. ‘No One Killed Jessica’ was a hugely publicised film because of the actual happening, which had affected so many people. The news about Jessica (Lall) was in the front page of dailies for very long, people were so involved, so the film had a lot of publicity value in a commercial way. So, it was one success,” Sharmila explained.

Meanwhile acclaimed actress Rani Mukerji says she is looking forward to more projects where women are projected as strong and powerful.

“Whatever films I have been a part of so far, most of them have been women-centric films. I wish to do more such films where women are shown stronger because it is a fact that women are stronger,” she said.

By Nivedita Sharma

Raima Sen: Why is She Worried About Her Mother Watching Her Film Mirch?

 Actress Raima Sen comes from a family where acting in the genes. Her mother Moonmoon Sen and grandmother Suchitra Sen were renowned actresses in the Bengali film industry. So, it has been quite easy for the 31-year-old actress to convince her family while performing sizzling and intimate roles in the movies.

However, as per the reports, Raima Sen has become very conscious about her lovemaking scene in her latest film Mirch. In this Vinay Shukla directed film, Raima has an intimate lovemaking scene with her co-star Arunodoy Singh, who was last seen in the Sonam Kapoor starrer movie Aisha.

Mirch has four parallel stories, which deals with the female sexuality from the angle of women, who are quite candid about sex. Raima shot a bedroom sequence with Arunodoy but the director Vinay Shukla found it not passionate enough and asked her re-shoot the scene. He also convinced her that the other actress Konkona Sen has also re-shoot her sex scenes. Raima agreed to do that and during the second time, the sequence was shot in more elaborate way.

However, when Raima watched the final graphic detailing, she was almost shocked to see that her seen was too much elaborate and Konkona’s scene was same as it was earlier. The actress was almost in tears and requested her director to tone down the sequence. She was feeling embarrassed thinking that how her mother will react watching this too intimate sequence.

The director has got his work done by making his film more sizzling with the re-shot sequence and he does not seem to have any interest in toning it down. Well, Raima you must have thought about this before going so passionate with Arunodoy. Now, your mother must have heard about it at least through media so there is no use of feeling so shy about it!

Mirch Movie Review

Movie: Mirch; Director: Vinay Shukla; Cast: Konkona Sen Sharma, Raima Sen, Boman Irani, Shreyas Talpade, Rajpal Yadav, Shahana Goswami, Arunoday Singh; Watch The Modern Woman Taking Charge Of Her Own Sex Life.

A small budget but meaningful cinema from the hands of Vinay Shukla, Mirch is clearly a thought provoking film which deals with contemporary issues such as a woman’s sexuality and gender equality in our country. Bollywood is no longer under pressure to play coy and that is clearly highlighted in the characters of Mirch, the girls shedding all inhibitions when it comes to baring all for the movie camera.

The story of Mirch introduces us to a guy named Manav who is prepared to do anything to secure a place in the film world as a successful filmmaker. However, when his initial scripts get rejected by a producer, he takes the help from the Panchatantra series to write down his own adaptation of the story of a girl who comes out unscathed even after her husband catches her red handed in bed with another man. While there are complains about the length of his film being short, Manav makes four modern stories inspired from the Panchatantra, all based on the subject of adultery and highly erotic in content.

As Manav’s storyline suggests, his actors will now have to shed all to enact their part in the film within a film. Mirch is thus a combination of four stories. The stories are thematically linked to one another but speak about four different sets of lives. Viewers are eagerly waiting to watch Vinay Shukla’s interpretation of the women who have a mind when it comes to sex.