Cast – Zarin Shihab, Vinay Forrt, Kalabhavan Shahjohn and 10 other male actors who go by their own names in the movie
Trigger warning – sexual harassment
Plot – The plot is very simple. A troupe of 13 theatre artistes consisting of 12 men and only one woman have been performing for a while now. The troupe gives a brilliant performance and as a token of appreciation, they are gifted with a night out at a patrons resort. Everyone is drinking and having fun and they are all split to their respective lives the next morning. The woman raises a sexual harassment complaint and everything starts to spiral. The twelve men meet and discuss the situation and try and come to a decision as to how they can handle this issue to the best of their abilities keeping their future and the troupes future in mind.
Technicalities – The storyline is simple. The cast are brilliant. There is not much technicalities in camera work or music. Just a simple presentation of the story. The sets are also very simple and commonplace.
Here’s my opinion and my observations of the film. Sexual harassment is a subject that’s not comfortable to portray on screen without turning it either into a very dramatic one with lots of drama and crying and action involved or downplaying the situation and making it a crass joke. I have seen both types in Bollywood movies and don’t think the directors have been able to strike the sweet spot of telling the story like it is and holding up a mirror to all that society considers as its narrative. Director Anand Ekarshi does a brilliant job at this. He tells the story of the sexual harassment without making it a point of titillation and at the same time covers all the various aspects of how society at large views this situation and from a male stand point.
A few things that stand out for me in the movie are how the entire cast plays their part so well. They all stay true to their characters all through the movie. The woman does not play the abla naari and none of the men play the rescuers part. Which is how it is in real life.
When women undergo sexual harassment, there is shock, fear, anger, shame, guilt, self-doubt and a host of other emotions that takes over from time to time. All of these take time to deal with and there is a lot of confusion in the process. During this point, they are hounded with people around them further questioning them of every detail that not only adds to the stress of dealing with what happened but also justifying their own role in the situation. What was she wearing, was she drinking, why is she close to men, did the incident really happen, does she have an ulterior motive, is she promiscuous and so on and so forth. By the time the woman justifies to all these, she is left frustrated and only wishes she can remove herself from this situation and go far away from all this.
This movie handles all of this very well. The conversations between men, when they are with other men versus how they are when women are around. The attitudes of men towards women. The analysing of whats been presented to them versus their own conditioning. All of these come out brilliantly in the movie. No one is made out to be a villain and like I mentioned earlier, no one made out to be the knight in shining armour who rescues her. Each person plays out their part and with great conviction.
In some parts I was reminded of the movie The Twelve Angry Men and I was also hoping it would go on a similar line but thankfully it doesn’t and it retains its own flavour and its narrative.
This movie must be made a part of the school and college curriculum and it must be discussed in great detail among all groups of people. Sexual harassment must be addressed in greater depth and with a lot of sensitivity. Most often people want to ignore it and hope that if they didn’t talk about it, it will go away. If they look away, it will magically go away and if you raise your voice, it is your fault. Today, more than ever, women are choosing to talk about it and I am so glad that mainstream cinema is also bringing it out as a topic of discussion. But we still don’t have enough voices being raised because I know that many more women choose silence over speaking out all because society chooses to question the victim and not the perpetrator.
This movie handles the topic with sensitivity and with precision. Watch it also because this is not an isolated incident. Women face sexual harassment in every space we occupy, be it in public spaces or in private, in homes or in workplaces, with strangers or people they know. This is the dark reality of every woman. She is not safe from groping hands and body parts that brush against her without her consent. Watch Aattam to find out how she dealt with the situation and who the perpetrator is.
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