Indian women have always excelled in every field and have made lasting impressions. Nonetheless, there is a long road ahead of them before they attain equal status in a patriarchal society like India.
The patriarchal power overshadows even the cinema industry of the country. Women are treated as objects rather than subjects. They are used as things that are meant to pleasing the eye of the audience, and thereby fulfilling male needs and desires.
The most celebrated women characters are the submissive, obedient and resilient ones who submit to the man, suppress their dreams and take care of the family. Being the well groomed perfect figures for men was their ultimate goal in most of the cinema. Popular Hindi cinema a.k.a Bollywood, is one of the most important propagators of this idea. Regional cinemas are no different. But there have been movements that have significantly changed the narrative in regional cinema. One such movement was the parallel cinema movement which brought Adoor Gopalakrishnan, one of the pioneers of Malayalam film society movement into world cinema.
The Adoor Wave
Adoor Gopalakrishnan played a major role in changing Malayalam cinema in the 70’s. His lead characters often belonged to a different class or caste, who generally did not within the concept of a classical hero or heroine. Faceless and nameless characters, from among the millions who were considered undesirable subjects of the society, found representation in his movies. His camera opposed dominating patriarchy and that is why women in his movies have a voice that raise questions.
Women in his movies are often found struggling to retain their identity in the society, yet standing strong and tall against the patriarchy. He gave an opportunity to women at a time when female characters were not recognised or given importance and addressed the concerns of women who are often marginalised from the mainstream society. The female character in Adoor’s stories question the system in place and seek freedom along with their most basic human rights. They are different from the typical characters that women were given at those times. His female characters are portrayed with complexity and layers, making them different and progressive from other characters. These are not characters that we encounter in the mainstream society and they are on a journey to find their identity, a home and freedom.
Adoor and his women
His stories widely explain the society’s indifference and discrimination towards women. In his movie Naalu Pennungal (2007) we see four female characters who are outcast by the society but learn to lead their way forward. The movie shows four different stories of four different women placed in different time period who were controlled by the society initially. They are part of the same loop irrespective of their background. Their only choices to submit to men and their needs , and is forced to live a life of loneliness. Through the course of the movie, the characters take their lives into their own hands and fight against the vicious norms of the society.
Even in his early works such as Elippathayam(1982), we see different kinds of women in the same household. Janamma the eldest sister who is married, considers herself a separate entity isolated from her family. However, wants her share of the property. Rajamma, who is trapped in the household who walks silently in her brother’s shadow, she has no voice in the house and then we have Sreedevi, who is full of hopes and dreams. Sreedevi is the rebellious among the three, she refuses stay home and be an obedient, submissive model woman; she is educated and desires to break free from the patriarchal trap and step out to the free world.
Adoor has carefully crafted his characters and has managed to recreate on screen men and women we see in our daily lives, but ignore. We are completely aware of their situation but refuse to act on it. Almost all of his female characters voice out their concerns at least once in the movie and come out of their shell. At a time when Karan Johar continues to produce big budget Hindi movies with divas who facilitate stereotyping and objectifying women without any objections, Adoor, through his simple language and subtle yet powerful symbolism paints an ideal society were men and women enjoy equal status.
Jeevan Biswas
Leave a Reply