Sanal Kumar Sasidharan is an angry man and his anger is directed at the ‘shallow’ society of his times that sits on judgment, on human beings and quickly condemns her or him to a stereotype. His anger is at the deep-seated patriarchal violence of this society that reveres a goddess but at the same time can look at a woman, call her a sister and demean her by forcibly taking away her desires and her choices. He is angry and his anger finds the only outlet that he is good at: his films. And of course, his latest film S Durga (2017) is a big angry question mark on our society, a mark that simply cannot be wished away. It has made a lot of people angry as well so that they have tried very hard to see that it is not exhibited. In Kerala, the film was released after a crowdfunding effort.
Last week, at the Habitat Film Festival in New Delhi, I had the good fortune of watching Sasidharan’s film S Durga that had run into trouble with the Censor Board and was not allowed to be screened at the Panorama section of India’s International Film Festival in Goa. I call it a good fortune because sometimes in the course of our banal mundane existence, we stumble across a film or a play or a piece of music that opens so many doors of perceptions and changes us forever. S Durga undoubtedly created such a moment because it did away with many preconceived notions in my mind that had resulted after reading about it. It made me think anew about ourselves, the world that we inhabit and the issues of gender, violence, religion and ethnicity that confront us daily in our increasingly polarised society.
The film opens with the sound of the nadaswaram playing at a temple festival where men practice kuthiyottam (ritual of body piercing) or agni kavadi (ritual of walking over live coals) for the goddess Parvathy (Durga) whose flower-bedecked idol is carried by dancing men. The violence of these images where men pierce their backs and thighs with hooks to dangle in front of a truck decorated with flowers and carrying the goddess is terrifying and the images etch themselves on our minds. Soon after, the camera cuts to a night-time image of a street where a young woman awaits with a bag as cars and motorbikes rush past her in the darkness. Shortly, a young man joins her and they start walking, trying to hitch a ride. The nightmare begins, as through devastating film noir inspired cinematography, the viewer is taken on a surrealistic ride through Indian patriarchy.
The music accompanying this journey is a first of its kind: both visceral and violent, jarring our sensibilities that want to build a carapace of decorum over gender violence. It is implicit in that iconic moment in the film when a couple comes out of their home to check the loud voices in the street (as the film’s protagonists are engaged in a verbal duel with their tormentors) and quietly go back without intervening. Them switching off the lights on their porch is symbolic of our minds and conscience that turn away when we see women in distress inside our homes, in our streets or in public places.
The language of that disengagement is also a kind of violence: violence wrought on emotions, violence that prevents us from being human. In this context, S Durga also depicts the state as being complicit. As the couple makes their way through the darkened streets, the car they are travelling in is stopped by a police patrol car. The police investigating the car’s occupants use luridly insinuating words and gestures, making the scene perhaps one of the best in Indian cinema.
Sasidharan’s film takes many elements from road movies, from suspense thrillers and from black comedies. We never get to know where the couple comes from or why they are in flight. Except their names, we know nothing about them. The man is called Kabeer and the woman, Durga. We are not told if they are running away from something, but throughout the course of the film, the other characters assume things about them when they hear their names. Their tones of contempt, the way they stereotype them, the intimidation and the bullying are unique studies of the endemic violence of our society.
Made on a shoestring budget and in just 19 days, the film is a ruthless exploration of power in its many avatars: through gender, ethnicity and religion. The travails of Kabeer and Durga, through a sleeping urban space, evoke a sense of breathless paranoia and suspense that never comes to an end. As the film ends, we are left with more questions than answers. In that Sasidharan is a master storyteller: he lets us know that even without beginnings or endings stories are valuable and must be told. Durga’s story must be told. After the screening, as he stood up to answer questions, the director also let out that he never considers his films his own after they are made: they belong to its viewers. Thank you Mr Sasidharan for this wonderful gift you gave us. Just one request: please don’t stop being angry.
Debjani Sengupta teaches at the Department of English, Indraprastha College, Delhi University. She is also the author of The Partition of Bengal: Fragile Borders and New Identities (CUP, 2015).
