Up from the news tab: Sonia Gandhi is going to be played by Italian actress Monica Belluci in an upcoming (apolitical) biopic called Sonia. In his comment on the article, Bongopondit points out that director Jag Mundhra has made his mark as a filmmaker doing a string of sleazy ‘skinemax’ flicks, with titles like Tales of Kama Sutra, Tropical Heat, and the memorably-titled Wild Cactus. Perhaps not by accident, on a number of these ventures Mundhra has worked with Producer Ashok Amritraj, who became the Harvey Weinstein of the genre before officially graduating to mainstream Hollywood mediocrity. (Though actually, I thought Raising Helen was a pretty decent romantic comedy, and it did have Sakina Jaffrey…)
The story gets more interesting: interspersed with spicier fare, Mundhra has also done a number of serious (but minor) Hindi films along the way, some of them with heavy-hitting actors (Kabir Bedi in Vishkanya! Nandita Das in Bawandar!). Most recently, of course, Mundhra directed TMBWITW Aishwarya Rai and Naveen Andrews in Provoked. The film gains some legitimacy from the cast, from the soundtrack by A.R. Rahman, and from the true story it is based on: a British court case that tested the legal definition of ‘provocation’ (Regina v. Ahluwalia; the Southall Black Sisters played a major role in her defense). There is a serious legal question here: can prolonged experience of severe domestic violence be considered sufficient provocation for a kind of defensive homicide? I would tend to think not, but as I understand it the British court finally decided in Kiranjit Ahluwalia’s favor. (Update: the court reduced her sentence to time served, but they did not reverse the guilty verdict.)
As a final note, there’s an irony in Jag Mundhra’s schizophrenic directing work that I can’t quite understand: many of Mundhra’s serious films protest crimes against women (Bawandar is about a woman who has been raped, and Provoked is about domestic violence), while his erotic thrillers obviously feature the exploitative display of women’s bodies. Interesting…
The Southall Black Sisters have criticised Jag Munhdra for some of his protrayals of the case in the movie.
There was a documentary about the director on the BBC a while back. He got tax breaks to film in the UK under a scheme to lure Bollywood producers to film in London, and he sandwiched the filming of ‘Provoked’ in between a couple of really sleazy soft porn flicks about Indian girls getting laid by white men across London. I can’t work him out.
I met Jag at the screening of Bawandar in LA, and he talked about this a little bit. Ashok did the same kind of films, Jag said it was out of consequence he did what he did. Sometimes people need to pay the bills and do what’s available at the time.
jaggu is a blatant oppurtunist. There is money to be made in porn so he does that. There is less money to be made in pandering to a banality expecting artsy fartsy exploitation seeking crowd but it earns props. thats what he is after. He hasnt dealt w/ heavy hitters in indian/US movie context. kabir bedi and nandita das arent in the heavy hitting league. Bawandar was criminal in showing that the cop masturbated on the dress…(and later hiding behind that its a work of fiction crap) Jagamohan is trying to earn respect back home so will continue with this kind of crap and may even be considered an artist by some buffons. if that is the case i have some paintings to sell to them.
I was waiting for a post on this (Provoked anyway)
I don’t know if you’ve read the book (Circle of Light) or heard the whole story, but this woman was systematically battered, physically and psychologically tortured, and left with little recourse. She was practically forced into the marriage (her brothers told her to stop being a burden on the family over and over), and after the marriage when she told her family and his about the abuse, they told her to go back to him and bear it.
The day she burned him, he had burned her with an iron. She says that she went into a trance like state, and poured the petrol on his feet only, believeing that if she burned his feet, he couldn’t chase after her. She says she remembers standing outside the house watching it burn down and being dazed still (I read the book a LONG time ago, so this is all based on recall).
Why should this be considered any differently than if he had approached her with a knife and she had shot him? It is self defence in the only way she could see at the time, in her circumstances. Most women who kill after prolonged abuse are not violent to anyone else, it’s just a reaction to their circumstance, much like the “heat of the moment” defense is used to lessen the charges against say a man who kills because he comes home to find his wife in bed with another man…
I do not condone killing or violence, but this is the result of social and cultural norms that relegate women to the bottom of the heap and then tell them it’s thier own fault they’re there.
From the Justice for Women website:
This site has a pretty balanced discussion the actual syndrome (Battered Woman’s Syndrome)…
Disclaimer: I know Rohit Sanghvi (the solicitor who worked on getting Kiranjit Ahluwalia out of jail on appeal).
That seems to be the trend these days… Mahesh Bhatt, Mahesh Manjrekar etc.
Kenyandesi, thanks, I haven’t read the book — I’m ordering it.
The day she burned him, he had burned her with an iron. She says that she went into a trance like state, and poured the petrol on his feet only, believeing that if she burned his feet, he couldn’t chase after her.
It’s helpful to know more about the immediate context. I think it’s very hard to imagine anyone supporting a long prison term for her given these circumstances, and I hope the movie ends up doing justice to the spirit of her story (since apparently it isn’t true to the letter).
The harder legal question would be whether the circumstances would lead a judge to a ‘not guilty’ verdict. In the U.S., I have a feeling it might not — thought that’s admittedly based on my watching too many crime dramas and not on any detailed knowledge of the law.
did ya know Jag Mundra is IIT Bombay electrical engineering class of ’68. I think he even got a distinguished alumni award.
There is debate whether the syndrome is real or not, or whether it advances the cause of such women, or women in general (perpetuating learned helplessness etc), but from my hazy recollection, it is used mainly as a backup to a temporary insanity plea, for which a not-guilty verdict might be more likely.
The reason this case was so important, was up until that time, defendants were not allowed to even present evidence of previous abuse in such cases. And women were often asked why they didn’t seek help/leave if they were being abused. I think we’ve come a long way from that time.
incidently while the courts did expand what provocation could mean, and accepted the notion of cumulative provocation, Kiranjit won her appeal on grounds of diminished responsibility.*
*probably paraphrased from here. (I don’t want a Kenyandesigate…)
http://www.alumni.iitb.ac.in/dist_alu_2002.htm
Yes, he did win a distinguished alumni award in 2002.
I love the way IIT describes his filmic output without ever mentioning any of the titles of the U.S. films:
“Slick thrillers”! That’s rather suggestive phrasing.
“slick thrillers”…that was classic.
I think in the U.S. each state handle BWS differently — in some states, it can be asserted as either a defense or used to “decrease” a charge (e.g. from 1st degree murder to voluntary manslaughter, which carries a lesser penalty) while in other states BWS cannot be used in court at all. As I understand it, BWS has never been sucessfully used to completely exonerate a woman from killing her abuser.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Don’t do it, Luce, don’t do it!!
Does anyone know anything about “Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema” by Ashish Rajadhyaksha? I’ve been looking for a good ref on Indian Cinema, and it sounds like this would be good. Also, the only edition available seems to be the revised 1999 edition…anyone know if and when a new one will be out?
Thank you much, and sorry for piling on to the post to ask a question…I DID try to find a film related post 🙂
But people what about sonia’s movie,no comments about it?????????????
I seriously hope Jag Mundhra makes a movie that would shame sonia gandhi and her followers..
uhhh.. so wot’s “serious Hind film” about Vishkanya?
I own it, it’s a really good resource for hardcore Indian film freaks. No idea about the next edition, if there’s going to be one.
The only problem with it is, they often don’t indicate whether a film is likely to be available on DVD or not. Many, many films they talk about are essentially inaccessible unless you go to the film archives in Poona.