LIPSTICK UNDER MY BURKHA

India, 2017, 117 minutes, Colour.
Ashana Kumra, Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma,Plabita Borthakur.
Directed by Alankrita Shrivastava.

This review is somewhat descriptive – this film has had release in Australia but not widely and readers may be interested to know what it is and what it is about. Otherwise, this is a review for reading afterwards for reflection on the film.
This is a film from India, about women in India, in the city of Bhopal, made famous decades ago by the industrial accident and subsequent pollution. It is designed for an audience in India and the Indian diaspora rather than a universal audience. However, it made an impact at an American Festival which led to international release.

On the one hand, it seems conventional enough in its highlighting of four central characters, interweaving their stories, presenting them in the context of life in Bhopal. There is an empathy for them and their situations. The male characters are generally more than chauvinist.

On the other hand, the subject and treatment are significant, representing Indian women, opening up issues of marriage, exploitation, themes of equity and equality as well as a range of sexual issues. This is comparatively new for Indian audiences, or at least in this style and in the cinema, and so is of interest to worldwide audiences who want to know more about the status of women in India.

The film was shot in Bhopal itself, and by the end of the film the audience will feel that it has really visited the city, a range of areas, poor and wealthy, old-fashioned as well as modern, homes, University, modern shopping… And there is a song, associated with an engagement, to remind audiences of the music tradition.

Some of the women are Muslim, others are Hindu.

Basically, this is the story of four women, one in her 50s, two middle-aged, one young. The older woman is actually reading a kind of Mills and Boon novel, the voice-over continuing throughout the film, the emotions and feelings, sexual arousal of Rosie, the heroine of the novel. It is an interesting device to introduce the sexuality themes and the repercussions for the four women.

Considering the four women:

• Rehana, who is seen in her burqha, leaving home, but taking it off when she arrives at the college, in T-shirt and jeans, lipstick and make up, auditioning with a Miley Cyrus song, getting on and not getting on with the other girls at college. And full of romantic ideas. She goes to shops, is able to do some shoplifting with the benefit of the extent and folds of the burqha, taking lipstick and make up, after testing perfumes, and walking out wearing boots. Meanwhile, at home with her strict parents, she spends a lot of time at the sewing machine, supervised by her father. There is a huge gap between home life, the social and religious traditions of Islam, and her yearnings to be modern and her taking the opportunity – which does lead her into some trouble, even with the police, and the dire responses of her father.

• Leela is Hindu, around 30, longing to get out of Bhopal and go to the city. With a photographer friend, she is spruiking a business with photos of couples, taken against exotic backgrounds, a kind of honeymoon package. We see them go through their spiel, not always successful. They are also having an affair. But, the family arranges for her engagement – and he is a pleasant young man, not obnoxious, quite devoted to her. And the photographer is invited to capture the engagement ceremony. Which does not stop them having a sexual encounter during the engagement party. Leela fights with the photographer, breaking off, wanting to connect again, wanting to get out of the city, having to encounter the fiance and his disappointment, her looking for more.

• Particularly interesting and challenging is the story of Shirin, a Muslim woman, wearing her burqha. Her husband works in Saudi Arabia, comes home every year, she giving birth every year or having an abortion. He seems to have lost interest – and she discovers he has a mistress. But, she has something of a life as she works with a company, proving herself an effective saleswoman as she goes from house to house and the audience sees some of her demonstrations and how she persuades affluent wives to subscribe to the products. She is salesperson of the month and is being offered for promotion. No need to wonder how her husband reacts, with his view that, while he is in Saudi Arabia, his wife should be domestically at home.

• There are further dramatic conflicts in the story of the Hindu Usha, age 55, owner of a property in Bhopal that is the envy of developers – and she standing against them, despite financial offerings and deals. It is she who is reading the Mills and Boon story, getting caught up with it, taking a child to the local swimming pool and encountering a young lifeguard, a touch of flirting on both sides, her going to the department store to buy a modest swimming costume, while telling her friend she is going to hear at a temple, then going for swimming lessons. She is very nervous about ringing the lifeguard but does so and starts to read the story to him – anonymously. The reaction of family when they discover the truth is disastrous for her.

Some of the commentators on this film have noted that the men use the word “shame� about the behaviour of the women. Clearly, this is a film where women have to assert themselves, make mistakes and learn from them, for appropriate equality in Indian society. Actually, “shame� is a more appropriate denunciation of the men in the film.