Roja is an excellent little movie made by Mani Ratnam back in 1992, starring Arvind Swami and Madhoo (Raghunath); it was a real
pleasure to watch another of Mani Ratnam’s works. His intelligence, his realism, his careful balance of private and public issues which are typical of his works, all this provides a
cinematographic pleasure that makes you feel clever and informed.
This is the story: After an opening scene where soldiers, in the misty half-light of a mountainous forest, encircle and catch a man whom we later come to recognize as a Kashmiri separatist, the scene changes to the Indian countryside, full of splendour and worthy of Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s shots in his film “Home”. We then follow the arrival of an educated young man, Rishi Kumar, who comes to visit a family where he hopes to find a wife (he's no less than as a local hero - very funny and touching scenes of welcome). He wishes to marry a “village belle”, he says, even though he’s always lived in the city. But when he arrives in front of her, she has a secret: she cannot marry him, could he please choose another girl? But, guess what? Upon arriving in the village, the visitor had been spotted by the younger sister, Roja.
The spectator has already noticed her, this fiery, brown-eyed beauty,
during the bucolic opening. And while the young man was coming, she had spied on him, they had exchanged looks (those knowing looks that lovers the world over recognize immediately, but know as
well how to reject because of social realities). But when Rishi Kumar’s decision has to be made public, when they all ask him whether he’s made up his mind, he points to Roja: “she’s the one I
want”. Of course this is a minor scandal, and for Roja most of all, but she doesn’t have the choice, and must marry the nice-looking stranger. During the wedding ceremonies and the song
Rukmani rukmani which captures its joy and expresses its social meaning, Mani Ratnam uses a remarkable background: a rushing floodlit waterfall, symbol of the impetuousness of love
perhaps, and makes old women dance with the young, in a vibrant celebration of life. But Roja leaves her home without her sister having explained the quandary she put her in. This is nevertheless
only momentary, and the valiant little sister will soon have her heart filled beyond her dreams.
Then drama occurs; this newly found treasure of a hubbie is kidnapped, and taken into hiding; the horrid battle of waiting, hoping, doubting,
despairing takes place, all too familiar in our modern world. Those who know Mani Ratnam know he’s capable of great and efficient suspense there. But I won’t tell you how the film’s story
continues, only that it’s packed with action and feeling, against a backdrop of breathtaking natural beauty.
That is what the film will be, in fact, a magnificent celebration of
beauty, life and love, in the best Bollywoodian tradition, the one that doesn’t base its appeal on the star-system. Of course it’s Mani Ratnam, so there’s the political purpose (see below), but
first the film is simply a classic and perfect Bollywood production, with all the necessary and well-balanced, well seasoned ingredients: we have the intense love affair, the danger-filled and
malevolent obstacles to love, the charming and witty humour, which comes from the situations themselves, and does not require a comedian’s antiques; the superb songs (AR Rahman, needless to say),
which emerge from the intensity of the action, or the passion; and there are all the great emotions: generosity, hatred, courage, determination, indignation, resistance, pity, silent love, and
the magical climax where the two lovers reunite and tears gush out.
Madhoo/Roja is the soul of the movie: her willpower, fuelled by a love which
never fails, her faith that Rishi Kumar, her adored husband, is alive in spite of all odds: these feelings are so poignantly presented that it works, we forget the little inconsistencies and the
exaggerated story elements. She appears to have forgotten herself, and becomes the fighting wife, the astoundingly daring lover, whose youth serves as experience and aplomb. Her self-confidence
sweeps aside, not only all resistance, but all disbelief that we are watching a movie. We are absorbed in the anguish of her quest, in the fearlessness of her pursuit, and we fear with her, we
hope with her, we cry with her. Such is the strength of acting!
Arvind Swami’s character and personality touches also, because of his
restraint and solidity. He doesn’t emote a lot, perhaps, but I found I liked his acting, which is at times almost expressionless: this lack of intensity struck me in fact as a kind of strength,
and the sign of a maturity which complements Roja’s youthful and domineering character. Reviews on Imdb have noted the patriotism of the scene where beaten and humiliated, Rishi Kumar manages to
repeat his “jai hind” to the face of the separatists, knowing full well he will incur the consequence of their rage, and one of the movie’s weaknesses is apparent there, in this vibrant and
somewhat naïve nationalism. But then again, perhaps this is a westerner’s view. Or it’s because the film was done back in 1992, when certain illusions about the resolution of the Kashmir conflict
could still be nurtured.
So: what is Roja, then? A brilliantly made entertainer? A political movie using the swallow-down virtue of boy meets girl? If we notice the two
aspects deal with separation and reunion, perhaps we could call it a hymn rooted in the love of the land: its overall purpose is the refusal of separation, and the assertion that love must and
will reunite those who are separated. Separatists are wrong, violent, and counter-nature. Roja fights for reunification with her husband, just as Mani Ratnam films for Kashmir to remain united to
India. Two reunifications, and this, even if Roja is repeatedly criticised in the film for her naïve and selfish intentions: doesn’t she know, the general tells her, that the exchange of
her husband against the terrorist Wasim Khan has cost the lives of many soldiers, who were certainly husbands and fathers too? How dare she demand her husband to be exchanged, when so many
mothers and wives have silently accepted their sacrifices? But the fact that the minister accepts her request shows that these two apparently antagonistic realities can combine, and that
unification should be also inspired by human values such as love, and not only through the hard facts of negotiation and politics.
One last word from imdb reviewer Reachrajdream, who I think has a good point: This movie is inspired from Italian movie De Sica's I Girasoli (1970), neverthless no complaints because I don't believe in originality. The movie is worth watching because of good story and flow of the story. (…) Even Vittoria De Sica might have been happy watching this movie because such a solid, positive enhancement of his work.
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So we are left at the end of the movie with this question: how do we react to
the story of this ordinary woman, who was forced to survive by sleeping with men so as to become pregnant, and be able to earn her money by feeding other women’s babies? Is it an extreme
situation? The lacklustre (almost boring) quality of the story seems to suggest it’s not that uncommon. What is catastrophic is the belief, voiced by the husband, that they are “ill-fated”, and
therefore have no freedom, no future. But this fate corresponds in fact to the social situation where the lower classes are alienated by the higher ones, and where women are the victims of
masculine greed, which society tolerates under cover of the culture of authority and respectability. In India, both society and religion (used to) create a situation in which the paupers and the
women are made to believe that their station in life cannot enable them to progress or hope for an improvement. Not only that, but any interaction with the wealthy and the higher classes
corresponds to a sort of honour which the oppressed are led to believe is bestowed on them.
Why is the value system so thin? What makes it crumble so easily? Where’s the
missing cement? Or the backbone? The men (politicians, men in comfortable social positions) which exclude Laxmi because she’s called a prostitute remind me of that scene in the gospel of St John
where Jesus defends the woman they bring him under charge of adultery. And the exclusion of the beggars who had found shelter under Gandhi’s statue, under the pretext of presenting a
“respectable” appearance to visiting politicians: isn’t it an awful perversion of his message of equality for all? Chasing the beggars whom Gandhi had precisely said were those who needed most
protection and consideration, because their presence sullies the grandeur of a nation celebrating the 40th anniversary of the country’s Independence? But independence from what?
Nabyendu Chatterjee’s only answer: independence from what Gandhi had lived for, and died for. Not only is India forgetting Gandhi’s heritage here, but it is in effect refusing it.
One particularly intense scene is when Laxmi, reflecting (as we
understand it) on her past, and having just remembered (or dreamt about) a night meeting with the community doctor, who came for shelter in her hut from the rain and get a little more too, is
awaken by her panting husband who, feverish and corpse-like, seems to be asking for breath or life – we know he’s suffering from some chest illness, and will soon die – but the way the scene is
shot turns him into a sexually famished ghost who, feverish, shivering in the dark, caresses her face, and seems to be asking for something he knows he cannot have: he’s been impotent for 18
years now. She fondles his cheek in return, apparently taking pity on him; but all he can do is retreat in anguish, trembling, his eyes bulging, leaving her flesh to its unreachable femininity.
This scene of human need and sorrow is so powerful one wonders how the film can have been neglected. We have a haunting representation of the fullness of sexual desire which is more than just
embarrassing (because so intimate): it’s very incredibly daring and profoundly moving.
And the scene is also creative from a cinematographic point of view: Laxmi
has just told the doctor “this body is God’s gift, I’ll carry on as long as I can” – we don’t know exactly if she’s referring to her nursing of his child – but the double-meaning of her words
implies the anticipation of sexual pleasure, and we cannot but sympathize with her husband, who is perhaps asleep somewhere in the hut. What’s happening is the director’s choice to show us a
woman anticipating, and understanding sexual and physical pleasure, and accepting it as God’s gift. We know of course she’s using her body to survive, it’s the couple only source of income, but
she says the sentence with such a smile that we realise she’s finding fulfilment in lovemaking, socially probably as much as otherwise.
All this brings to mind the figure of the nurturing Mother, who is present at
birth, love-time and dying. The movie indeed asks this question: what is motherhood? Who has the right and dignity of being called a Mother? Is motherhood only the well-established status of the
family woman with children? Parshuramer kuthar answers: no, a mother is not only a woman who has given birth; a mother is any woman who has given
life. Laxmi claims that title in the film, and her drama is that this title is denied her.
In between takes place the scene where she meets her gentle husband (Girish Karnad) at the temple, and where, perhaps out of desperation or to goad him, she accuses
him of being a coward, and not having stormed the zamindar’s house to free her. So when she’s back in her prison, she gives herself to Vishvam’s lust, in a move that is one of the most sickening
I’ve seen in Indian cinema so far. Because even if such an act of unfaithfulness can be described as desperate, it forces us to re-evaluate what we thought we had understood about the
relationships between teacher and wife. Indeed there is a scene where the two of them are in bed, and the schoolmaster clearly wants to make love to her, but she shuns him: “I’m tired”, and he
gently moves back, patting her on the shoulder. What a fortunate woman, I thought, whose husband understands she cannot always be ready to satisfy him, and who doesn’t criticise her or brutalise
her for refusing! Such an attitude is indeed immediately rewarded, because she then turns around, and asking him for a mirror and a new sari, embraces him, and the light fades on their
intimacy…
Bandini
Bandini
