Deepa Mehta is a skilled film director, having done such classics as "Fire" and "Water" in the past. She is Canadian, but ethnically from India, where most of her movies are set.
This work is about that horrid case where a woman and her fiancees took a bus in the evening, was gang-raped and horribly beaten by the six men on the bus, and died several days later. (The fiancees was beaten, too.) Deepa's work focuses on how the six men came to be who they were, not on the bus attack itself, which we never directly see.
I have mixed feelings about this film. Indeed, I am hesitant to even call it a film. It seems more like a filmed acting exercise or a filmed sociological experiment.
Before really writing the script, Mehta ran some acting exercises with the cast, with them imagining how the 6 men grew up. She quickly decided that the raw, spontaneous stuff they were coming up with was more powerful than a script developed from it could ever be. So that's what the film is. (It's probably cheaper, too.)
So six times, we end up with a grown man playing a character from the age of 7 on, or whatever. So that was...odd. By imagining how these men got to where they were instead of actually researching it seems a bit easy. If you really want to know The Anatomy of Violence, do an autopsy instead of emoting what's lies beneath the skin.
The imagined stories were interesting enough. A bit simple, perhaps: I was raped by my uncle, so I'll become a rapist. I was groped by an older neighbor woman who then blamed me, so I'll hate all women. And so on.
The actress who spoke at the film showing said that the film is being shown in some high school classes. I think it would be very suitable for that purpose. It certainly provoked discussion between my wife and me.
This work is about that horrid case where a woman and her fiancees took a bus in the evening, was gang-raped and horribly beaten by the six men on the bus, and died several days later. (The fiancees was beaten, too.) Deepa's work focuses on how the six men came to be who they were, not on the bus attack itself, which we never directly see.
I have mixed feelings about this film. Indeed, I am hesitant to even call it a film. It seems more like a filmed acting exercise or a filmed sociological experiment.
Before really writing the script, Mehta ran some acting exercises with the cast, with them imagining how the 6 men grew up. She quickly decided that the raw, spontaneous stuff they were coming up with was more powerful than a script developed from it could ever be. So that's what the film is. (It's probably cheaper, too.)
So six times, we end up with a grown man playing a character from the age of 7 on, or whatever. So that was...odd. By imagining how these men got to where they were instead of actually researching it seems a bit easy. If you really want to know The Anatomy of Violence, do an autopsy instead of emoting what's lies beneath the skin.
The imagined stories were interesting enough. A bit simple, perhaps: I was raped by my uncle, so I'll become a rapist. I was groped by an older neighbor woman who then blamed me, so I'll hate all women. And so on.
The actress who spoke at the film showing said that the film is being shown in some high school classes. I think it would be very suitable for that purpose. It certainly provoked discussion between my wife and me.
