It is often said that marriages are set up in heaven.
But in India, where most marriages are organized, the matching process can be felt like a passage through hell for a woman and her family.
This is the assumption of Sthala: a match, a movie from 2023 marathful languages that won several prestigious awards at festivals in India and abroad. On Friday, he was first published in cinemas in India.
Located in the Rural State of Maharashtra, the film focuses on the Savita, a young woman who tried to educate and career at a patriarchal society, and her father’s attempts Daulatrao Wandhare – a poor farmer of Pamuk – to find a good husband for her daughter.
“He wants a good price for his crop and a good match for his daughter,” says director Jayant Digambar Somalkar.
The film is known for its unwavering way in which he shows what his main actress calls the “very humiliating” experience of many young women, unlike other Indian films about decorated marriage.
Sthal also attracted attention as the whole acting role made from the first actors selected from the village where it was shot. Nandini Chikte, who plays Savita, has already won two awards for his great performance.
The film opens with a series in which Savita interviews the potential groom.
Together with her relatives and friends, she watches a young man serving their tray drink. They laugh when, visibly nervous, it breaks during the test.
Handwritten by what turned out to be a dream, it is bent to prepare as a group of men to see it.
In reality, gender roles are completely reverse, and in a scene that repeats several times in an almost two -hour movie, Savita humiliation comes into a sharp focus.
The future groom and other men from his family are welcomed by Savita’s father and male relatives. Guests feed on tea and snacks, and after being introduced, the bent is called.
Dressed in Sarah, her eyes lowered, she sits on a wooden chair facing her examiners.
Questions come, fat and fast. What’s your name? Full name? Mother’s clan? Date of birth? Height? Education? Case? Hobbies? Are you ready to work on a farm?
Men are crazy, maintaining a discussion. “She’s a little dark. She had a makeup on her face, but didn’t you see her elbow? That’s her real color,” says one. “It’s also short,” he continues to add. The other nodded in agreement.
They leave, saying Daulatrao, in a few days to inform him about their decision.
According to their parents, “this is the fourth or fifth time that someone has come to see Savita” – all the earlier meetings ended with rejection, which led to the cracking of the heart and despair.
The scene sounds true. In India, men often have a list of attributes who want laundry in their bride – a view of the spouses in the newspaper and the website to make match shows that everyone wants high, honest, beautiful brides.
Savita Protestation – “I don’t want to get married, first I want to graduate from college, and then take exams for civil services and build a career” – they have no weight in their rural community, where the marriage is presented as the only goal worth having a young woman.
“Marriage is given too much importance in our society,” Chikt told the BBC. “Parents believe that after the daughter is marrying, she will free up her responsibility. It’s time to change that narrative.”
She says she thought it was “very humiliating” that Savita was made to sit in a chair to make her judge all those men who talked about her skin color, until there was no discussion of a potential groom.
“I was just acting, but as the movie progressed, I lived Savit’s journey and I felt angry on her name. I felt offended and unfair.”
The film also deals with social mischief of crimes – the practice of the bride who gave cash, clothing and jewelry of the groom’s family.
Although he has been illegally for over 60 years, they are still ubiquitous in Indian weddings.
It is well known that the girl’s parents take huge loans or even sell their land and house to meet the requests for dowry. Even this does not ensure a happy life of brides, because the groom or family or his family kill every year for bringing insufficient Dowris.
And in the film, Daulatrao puts a sign “for sale” on his country, although agriculture is the only source of survival.
Director Somalkar says the idea for his debut feature film is rooted in his own experience.
Growing up with two sisters and five women’s relatives, he witnessed a ritual too many times when a potential groom visited his home.
“As a child, you do not question the tradition,” he says, adding that the turning point arrived in 2016 when he followed a male cousin to see a potential bride.
“This was the first time I was on the other side. I felt a little uncomfortable when the woman came out and sat down in a chair and my questions asked. When we went out to the discussion, I felt a conversation about her height and the skin color he objectified.”
When he talked about the matter at the time with his fiancé – who is his wife now – encouraged him to explore him in his work.
In a country where 90% of all marriages have still organized families, Sthal is not the first to deal with the topic on the screen. IMDB has A list of almost 30 movies About the agreed marriage made by Bollywood and Regional Film Industries in the last two decades.
More recently, a wonderfully popular Netflix Show Indian making matches He focused completely on the process of finding a perfect partner.
But as Somalkar points out, “weddings are extremely glamorurized” on the screen.
“When we think of weddings in India, we mean a big fat wedding full of fun and glamor. We mean Hum Aapke Hain Koun,” he says, referring to the Bollywood Blockbuster from the 1990s celebrating Indian wedding traditions.
“A show Netflix dealt only with a certain class of people, those who are rich and educated, and women are able to use their choice.
“But the reality for most Indians is very different and parents often have to go through hell to get their daughters marry,” he adds.
His reason for the creation of Sthala, he says, is “to equalize society and the audience from complacent.
“I want to start a discussion and encourage people to think about the process that objectes women who have very little freedom to choose between marriage and career,” he says.
“I know that one book or one movie does not change society overnight, but it can be the beginning.”
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