Post by Eλευθερί on Nov 13, 2018 9:41:19 GMT
Now on Netflix.
Indian auteur Q pulls no punches in his latest film, Garbage, which he has dedicated to "Monika," whom I believe is understood to be Monika Ghurde, a 39-year-old woman who in 2016 was raped, tortured, and murdered, allegedly by an ex-security guard at her flat.
In the film, a young taxidriver keeps a mute woman as a slave, chained to a wall in his home. He is obsessed with another young woman, a medical student who has become a recluse after being the victim of an ex-lover's having posted a sextape of her on the internet. She has been hiring him to be her driver. When she discovers that he has a copy of the sextape on his smartphone, she turns her fury against him.
indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/karma-chameleon-5322748/
It is quite graphic and an extremely difficult film to watch. Someone wrote in a review that it is India's first revenge porn film.
But by the end I found myself feeling so sorry for Phanishwar, despite all the truly despicable acts he had perpetrated against the women--kind of the opposite of how I felt after watching, say, Kill Bill and Kill Bill 2. And I'm not sure whether that was quite what Q was intending.
www.livemint.com/Leisure/z25G1frczuPKA1CVuaohTJ/Director-Q-We-are-living-in-very-bad-times.html
Indian auteur Q pulls no punches in his latest film, Garbage, which he has dedicated to "Monika," whom I believe is understood to be Monika Ghurde, a 39-year-old woman who in 2016 was raped, tortured, and murdered, allegedly by an ex-security guard at her flat.
In the film, a young taxidriver keeps a mute woman as a slave, chained to a wall in his home. He is obsessed with another young woman, a medical student who has become a recluse after being the victim of an ex-lover's having posted a sextape of her on the internet. She has been hiring him to be her driver. When she discovers that he has a copy of the sextape on his smartphone, she turns her fury against him.
In director Qaushiq Mukherjee aka Q’s most “joyless” film ever, [Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts-trained Tanmay Dhanania] plays Phanishwar, a cab driver in Goa who is utterly devoted to a Hindu godman, spews hateful right-wing propaganda on social media and keeps a slave chained up in his home. It’s hard to think of any actor working in the mainstream who would play this protagonist, let alone lend empathy to such a character, but Dhanania succeeds admirably.
“Phanishwar is a representation of the misogyny, the patriarchy and the polarisation that’s taking place in this country now. He’s a Hindu Brahmin but doesn’t come from socio-economic privilege, is drawn to communal forces because they represent some kind of hope for him. Everything in this film has happened in India this year — the cow vigilantes, the godmen, rapes, revenge porn, lynch mobs — it goes into real spaces. But as an actor, I cannot judge Phanishwar. What is interesting to me is somebody who can be kind and gentle in one situation but also capable of incredible hate and violence in another,” he says.
Garbage, the only Indian film to be featured at Berlinale this year, has quietly made the festival rounds before being screened in Mumbai.
“Phanishwar is a representation of the misogyny, the patriarchy and the polarisation that’s taking place in this country now. He’s a Hindu Brahmin but doesn’t come from socio-economic privilege, is drawn to communal forces because they represent some kind of hope for him. Everything in this film has happened in India this year — the cow vigilantes, the godmen, rapes, revenge porn, lynch mobs — it goes into real spaces. But as an actor, I cannot judge Phanishwar. What is interesting to me is somebody who can be kind and gentle in one situation but also capable of incredible hate and violence in another,” he says.
Garbage, the only Indian film to be featured at Berlinale this year, has quietly made the festival rounds before being screened in Mumbai.
It is quite graphic and an extremely difficult film to watch. Someone wrote in a review that it is India's first revenge porn film.
But by the end I found myself feeling so sorry for Phanishwar, despite all the truly despicable acts he had perpetrated against the women--kind of the opposite of how I felt after watching, say, Kill Bill and Kill Bill 2. And I'm not sure whether that was quite what Q was intending.
Garbage ... is replete with disturbing imagery, yet raises important questions about deconstructing masculinity, casual misogyny, sexism and racism, female sexual liberation and unbridled religious fanaticism....
[from interview with Q:]
I had to spend a lot of time shaping the narrative, so the viewer can empathize with the messed-up characters in the movie. Born as a Brahmin middle-class boy from Calcutta (now Kolkata), I come from a place of privilege. My parents never practised religion. My father was a staunch atheist and that’s where I get my philosophies from. So I had to work hard to create believable characters—the religious fanatic, the victim of revenge porn, the unflinching Hindu ideologue of a godman, etc....
In a way, Garbage is part documentary, part feature film....
Question: What do you think is the future for arthouse experimental movies like ‘Garbage’ in India?
I don’t see a very healthy future. We’re living in very dark times and this film is a testimony to that. Let’s not forget that things are only beginning to get worse. And we don’t have any reference to fight it.
[from interview with Q:]
I had to spend a lot of time shaping the narrative, so the viewer can empathize with the messed-up characters in the movie. Born as a Brahmin middle-class boy from Calcutta (now Kolkata), I come from a place of privilege. My parents never practised religion. My father was a staunch atheist and that’s where I get my philosophies from. So I had to work hard to create believable characters—the religious fanatic, the victim of revenge porn, the unflinching Hindu ideologue of a godman, etc....
In a way, Garbage is part documentary, part feature film....
Question: What do you think is the future for arthouse experimental movies like ‘Garbage’ in India?
I don’t see a very healthy future. We’re living in very dark times and this film is a testimony to that. Let’s not forget that things are only beginning to get worse. And we don’t have any reference to fight it.
