Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Matrubhoomi (2003)

Young Indian filmmaker Manish Jha writes and directs the French-Indian co-production Matrubhoomi (A Nation Without Women). In rural India of the near future, a small village has been reduced to a violent state of barbarianism. Because of the immoral tradition of female infanticide, the town is populated exclusively by brutish men. Nevertheless, wealthy Ramcharan (Sudhir Pandey) still tries to arrange a marriage for his eldest son Rakesh (Pankaj Jha). He manages to purchase the only woman around, Kalki (Tulip Joshi), who ends up serving all five of his sons. The violence only escalates from there. A Nation Without Women was shown at the 2003 Venice Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
Matrubhoomi (2003)

Kalki not only has to serve the 5 sons but also serving the father which then in a twist of betrayal reveals her father to be simply a Pimp asking for more money as the number of men getting "servicing" increased. What they end up doing to her is clearly unimaginable and would have meant the death for most people as she was chained up and raped repeatedly.

I give this film high praise for dramatic script and originality. I would truly like to see more Indian films that delved into science fiction. Although this is meant to be in the near future as the villages just started getting cellular phones, it is still sci-fi in that the world has never experienced that degree of misogynistic. The opening scene is an ancient one of a female child that is drown in a tub of milk.

But honestly, although they are making a point about how many women are aborted or infanticide of females in India, it is very unlikely that such a scenario would come to fruition. It was even noted in the film that it was no longer the family of the women that paid dowry but the shortage of women caused the price of available women to skyrocket. Thus the economics would bring the pendulum closer to the natural selection process. There would be increased incentives for people to have women to fill the need for sex and marriage and to even have a son...

Watched any good Sci-Fi Indian films? Let me know.

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