| Dahan |
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Director: Rituparno Ghosh Made: 1997-98 Writer: screenplay by Rituparno Ghosh based on the novel of the same name by Suchitra Bhattacharya Genre: Urban Drama
Cast: Abhishek Chatterjee ... Palash Indrani Haldar ... Jhinuk Rituparna Sengupta ... Romita Shakuntala Barua ... Jhinuk's mother Subhendu Chatterjee ... Jhinuk's father Nirmal Kumar ... Government lawyer Suchitra Mitra ... Jhinuk's grandmother And others Dahan is an examination of the urban middle class mind. Although it is also the story of three women characters, Jhinuk, her Grandmother, and Romita, the real protagonist in Dahan is the middle-class morality and false and twisted mores. These are the things that allow culprits to go free, in cases especially of violence against women, and victimize the victim all over again. Rituporno has done a superb job, as usual, of making the characters real, their pain palpable, and their mindsets understandable, even if you cant agree with them.
Newlywed Romita and her husband Palash are attacked on their way home from shopping one evening. While the miscreants beat him up, and molest his wife, a crowd gathers to watch, although not a single person steps up to protest or help. Both her pleas, and the very real violence perpetrated on them both, are completely ignored by the bystanders, until a schoolteacher, a woman, steps forward and somehow forces the ruffians to leave, probably saving not just Romita’s honor but her husband’s life as well. This is just the beginning, of the film, and of their troubles. It is now that society goes into gear and plays its double game.
while on the one hand Jhinuk is lauded by the media and is definitely the hero of the moment, an undercurrent begins to flow to force both Jhinuk and Romita to give up the prosecution of the ruffians. In the guise of nosy neighbors, worried parents, increasingly violent husband, alienated boyfriend, and leering cops and lawyers, society intervenes again and again, making the two of them realize that they are after all the lesser sex. In spite of all their education and their freedoms, in spite of the apparent equality they enjoy, they soon realize that double standards do, very much, exist, and that they must either bend with society, or break. The film is an exquisite and subtle study of the various motives and pressures that make nice people act in not-nice ways; that make perfectly honorable people behave unethically. The shades of the characters, the nuances of their own problems, and the resulting effect on the two women, are all superbly handled by Ghosh.
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