Name of the movie: Angry Indian Goddesses
Director: Pan Nalin
This film will change the way one looks at Indian cinema from one dimension because films like these are made to break stereotypes and a set paradigm of Bollywood.
Directed by the Zeus of filmdom, Pan Nalin (who also made ground breaking films such as Samsara & Valley of Flowers, this film has it all. ‘Angry Indian Goddesses’ is written by Arsala Qureisi but the story is by Pan Nalin, himself.
Shot in the backdrop of Goa’s mystical environment, the brilliant Pan Nalin has made it look like the entire film was as effortless as the actors’ acting skills proved. Something so crisp, clean, clear, simple but that is why it must’ve required much hard work and the result was phenomenal! Each woman who played each role did perfect justice to all the characters of the film. There is no certain, typical protagonist in the film. Each character played by each of the 7 women are wholly significant like their every scene. No scene was wasted to insert a piece of an irrelevant joke or cheesy songs or such to make the film interesting. There was no need to. It was like sitting on a solid rock, in the midst of a forest and soaking in all the pleasure of watching a waterfall in all its being-uninterrupted, flowing freely as ever!
Everything about this film was extremely satisfactory in a calm and serene sense, but don’t get comfortable there because if you decide to watch this film, oh boy, you are in for an experience of a lifetime. The film incepts with strong roots, which is immensely important to seep in the understanding of each character because that’s where the characters would develop from. The lives and stories of these women’s lives are a riot of pandora boxes. Seven women~a dreamer (Jo),a fashion photographer who is sick of the shallowness of her industry(Freida), an artiste in search of a place where she feels belonged (Mad), a trophy wife to the world but a naive and simple woman in real( Pammy), a single mother and a business woman torn between being a professional and a mother(Su), An Adivasi activist who lives life passionately (Nargis) and a domestic help who is everything between crazy and funny but also a mysterious badass (Lakshmi) . Seven lives. Seven stories. One impromptu bachelorette party. One incident. And bammmm! Nothing would ever be the same again. Their lives are intertwined by an unpretentious bond known by many as ‘friendship’ and human empathy. And, that collective human empathy becomes a weapon for these women when push comes to shove because how much should the Indian women, in fact, all women of this world tolerate?
However, the film is not about their ’friendship’. It is truly holistic in every sense.
Raw, uncensored, fun, lovely, sensitive, cathartic, unpretentious and full of wrath – these are some of the adjectives to say the very least to describe this revolutionary film. Screenplay and cinematography are lovely. Each characters’ costumes, set-up were not over made but left pristine to how the women chose to carry these characters forward and give them life by being all they were meant to be for this film. That’s why it worked so well. Each of them were deserving of the roles they played, all seven of them. The storyline worked brilliantly along with how the cinematography was done. And no, this is not one of those ‘too-serious’, ‘no-music-policy-kind-of-movies’. This is a proper feature film and has amazing songs and humor, particularly one would enjoy humming this song, ‘Zindagi’ sang by Anoushka Manchanda who also is one of the characters called Mad (Also a Bollywood singer in the film).
‘Angry Indian Goddesses’ is one unique piece of Art- originality at its prime.
It is time to revisit this 2015 cult film during this time because of our forgetfulness about how crimes against women are taken so lightly. In Manipur, on recent news there was a certain 14 years old girl gang-raped by her alleged boyfriend and friends, who was allegedly murdered after the rape. If news headlines have made people numb, then this platform of art exhibition might awaken people’s numbed senses. One can catch this film on Netflix or download it from the internet.
The writer is currently pursuing Masters in English Language and Literature from Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Bengaluru. She earlier interned at Bowel Cancer UK as a public relations assistant in London, and after receiving training as an English teacher under Via Lingua International in Istanbul
