By Travis Johnson
Set in a remote Indian village, Parched tells the story of four women – a widowed mother, an abused wife, a young bride and a prostitute – and the small ways in which they manage to rebel against the male oppression they live under. A far cry from what we might normally expect from Indian cinema, with its colorful Bollywood connotations, it’s a frank, harrowing, and frequently hilarious look at gender relations and sexuality in contemporary India.
The film has its genesis in a conversation between the writer and director, Leena Yadav (Shabd, Teen Patti) and actor Tannishtha Chatterjee, who would go on to play one of the lead roles. “We were having a conversation, looking for something to do together,” Yadav explains. “And she told me about conversations she had had with these women in a village where they were shooting another film. Especially the conversations about sex, I found more candid and more honest than the ones that we would have in the cities. And I said that’s so interesting, because we all sit in judgement all the time.”
Initially, Yadav envisioned the project as something more lighthearted – “I started off wanting to make Sex And The Village,” she jokes – but as she began researching and gathering material, she realised the film could be a tool for bringing to the forefront topics of conversation that are even now rarely addressed in India. “I came back to Bombay and I realised that exactly the same things were happening in my backyard, but we were in complete denial of it because we all want to believe that the problems are happening elsewhere. Similarly, I sent my script out the world over and I got back more stories from my friends. So, what my big learning from this was, actually not much has changed the world over – we’ve just learned to hide it better and better with progress. So that’s when this film became absolutely compelling for me to make.”
In the sexually conservative Indian film industry, even finding funding for such an undertaking proved enormously difficult. “It was the biggest challenge ever,” Yadav recalls. “Because none of the traditional set ups would support a film like this. Basically what happened was my husband [Aseem Bajaj], who is a cinematographer, decided to produce the film, and he made me the most difficult promise – he said, ‘You make the film you want and I will produce it for you.’ Additional support came from private investors, including Indian star Ajay Devgan. “He’s the one who gave us the seed money for the film. His name added a lot of credibility to the project.”
Though the film has done very well internationally and on the festival circuit, it has yet to see a wide release in its native country. At the time of writing it has yet to be passed by the notoriously conservative Indian censor – a state of play that is very much on Yadav’s mind.
“Okay, so this is a touchy one,” she sighs. “This is in process right now, as we talk, literally! But I’m very optimistic. I feel if the time is right that a film like this got made, then it’s going to find its way out. And come on, the world has seen the film, we’ve been running successfully in France for four months. The film has to release in India – it belongs there. Indian audiences have seen it in private screenings, a small number of them, and a lot of Indian audiences the world over, and all of them are like ‘You have to release this film in India.’ At one of the screenings in Toronto, I had a huge amount of people who wanted to sign a petition to send to India to say ‘India should see the film that we saw. Do not cut anything out.’”
Still, Yadav is hopeful that Parched, if and when it does see release, can help move Indian sexual mores into the 21st century. “The attitude towards sex generally is very ‘behind the curtain’ – we don’t talk about it. We’re the country of the Kama Sutra but we don’t have sex in our films. It’s just this whole hypocrisy, and I think that sexual repression is the reason for a lot of anger and violence in society. So I think we need to just talk about sex and get fine with it – it’s normal. Everyone has sex, it’s okay.”
Parched will open The Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival on November 23 at 6:00pm. For all ticketing and venue information, head to the official site. For more on The Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival, head to the official site.
