Lipstick Under My Burkha

This is somewhat of an offbeat movie to come out of the mainstream Hindi movie industry. The topic and the narration is refreshing. The setting in Bhopal (a non-metro city) helps. There's shock, humour and sadness in equal doses. I just wished the ending would have been more wholesome rather than leaving things unsaid. By the way, the movie certainly deserved the A (Adult) certification it was handed by the Film Certification Board and you'll realize in no time why it ran into controversies.

Lipstick under my burkha, a film by Alankrita Shrivastava, was in the headlines due to its release being banned in India. It is a film which focuses on women, their sexuality, their desires, their frustrations and their need to break the shackles of society in which they feel suffocated. Alankrita has made a very unapologetic film. And yes, as the media reports were there, the film is bold in terms of its theme, subject, screenplay as well as its treatment. If we compare it with the films of the west, certainly one could notice the scope of improvement. But if we take this as an Indian film, indeed, it is a first of its kind, where the film tries to depict the females and their vulnerabilities without actually defending the same. But what the film does not try to do is to show the change in any context or the situation for the female characters. The situation remains the same. As a result, the film appears neither taking any stand as such nor bringing any transformation to the characters. It just seems like the lady characters are fulfilling their desires or living in their dreams/fantasies. The end feels a little abrupt. But yes, the film is successful in making its point clear that hypocrisy exists in our society even in 21st Century, norms of our society being gender specific, and how every woman has the right to live her life and make her choices too, but she is deprived of her basic rights. The film is not taking any moral stance but taking us through the journey of women as they are. It just highlights what is prevalent in the society without trying to find any answers to many pertinent questions raised in the film. It also appears as one sided story from females' perspectives. The backdrop is set in Bhopal and Alankrita chooses to have four female protagonists who all stay in the same colony – Usha (Ratna Pathak Shah), Shirin (Konkana Sen Sharma), Leela (Ahana Kumra) and Rihana (Plabita Borthakur). Alankrita has also selected another character Rosy from a novel to share the expressions what is not shown on the screen but certainly important for the audience to understand these four characters and their feelings in a much better and explicit manner. Burkha is used here more as a metaphor since within this burkha, there is a woman who wants to just fly free, sing at the top of her voice, use make up, conscious of one's looks, wants to look good, wants to enjoy sex, wants to talk sex over phone, wants to do everything which is taboo as per societal norms. Usha is 55-year-old widow who is known as Buaji. She even has forgotten her real identity of Usha, tells her name as Buaji when asked. She loves to read pulp novels and she meets her sexual urge through these characters' portrayals. The interesting thing is that Usha hides these novels in between some other book and then reads. This is how she hides her own embarrassment of having the desire for sex and wanting to be sexually active. She herself feels that is it appropriate for her to think of sex or reading pulp novels. Another important character is that of Shirin portrayed by Konkana Sen Sharma. Shirin has 3 children. Her husband Aslam (Sushant) is now back to India, earlier he was working in Saudi. This is a typical case of marital rape. Sushant is hardly having any love for Shirin and children but every night he wants to have intercourse with Shirin. Shirin surrenders to Aslam in spite of not enjoying. Besides most of the times, she ends up reaching clinics to get abortions done. She is working as a Sales Executive but hides this from Aslam knowing that he would not allow her to work. Many females would be able to relate to Shirin's marital rapes, sighs, tears, and longingness to have her man's love instead of lust. Leela (Ahana) is a character who is gregarious, declares her love to her photographer boyfriend (Vikrant Massey), very expressive. She loves to click photos with him and even loves to record videos while Leela makes love with him. She runs her own beauty parlour. She wants to just move out of the colony where she stays and run away to Delhi with her boyfriend. She rebels against the proposal brought in by her mother. Rihana (Plabita Borthakur) is a college student, who belongs to a family which is into tailoring. She loves to sing and dance and just wants to get rid of the burkha. She is so submissive in front of her parents, obeys them apparently but the moment she steps out of her house, she removes the burkha and reaches college in modern outfits. She represents many girls of our society, who just want to break free of every restriction at home. The story of all these four women clubbed with Rosy's story from the novel moves in non-linear format. Ratna, Konkana, Ahana, Plabita are all good in the film. Usha's story moves ahead through Jagat Singh Solanki who portrays a Swimming Coach. Jagat has done many films in the past and he brings a lot of credibility to his characters. Here, in this film, he projects very well that how he gets attracted to a female and her phone talks. And as his role of swimming coach demands, he has maintained a very well-toned physique. Sushant as Aslam - Shirin's husband is certainly wonderful. He maintains the expressions of an abusive husband. Vikrant Massey as a lover boy and boyfriend of Leela is very good. Vaibbhav Tatwawdi as Leela's fiancée has also given a good performance. Shashank as college mate of Rihana plays a typical boy who is an opportunist and does not shy away from breaking his commitment to a girl.

This movie may be slight boring and irritating if you are looking for entertainment. But if you like to see true picture of our Indian society this is the best movie..Director Alankrita Shrivastava disparately want to show us mirror, and thats why she has not taken 1 or 2, but chosen 4 types of woman characters and successfully portrayed.

I don't think its 50 or 60%, but most of men or woman, specifically woman, forced to live a life, imposed by our Indian society, which director bravely depicted in this movie.

Aahana, Ratna, Konkona & Plabita, played their role flawlessly, and director had very good grip on movie, all the time..

A power packed quest to break the barriers set for women.

The movie is directed by Alankrita Shrivastava who was assistant director to Indian Hindi movies Director Prakash Jha's two films Apaharan and Rajneeti - who has supported her to produced this film.

The story is of four women - Usha (Ratna Pathak) Leela (Aahana Kumra), Shirin (Konkona Sen Sharma) and Rehana (Plabita Borthakur) - all staying in the same chawl - a mix of religious identities and age groups

The story is narrated on a parallel track of a novel that Usha's voice-over reads parts of a Hindi porno novel "Lipstick wale Sapne"

Usha is in mid fifties who loves to read porno novels,

Leela is a sex-hungry girl in love with a photography and aspiring to be a celebrity, but is engaged with another guy - yet continues to have sex and love her lover

Shirin is a housewife who secretly does a job of sales women to support her family when her unemployed husband is out having an extra- marital affair and whenever he comes home, is obsessed with treating his wife Shirin as sex object.

And Rehana is a college going girl who wants to break free from her religious conservative Muslim family. She goes out from her house wearing a Burkha but craves for all western things - music, dresses, dance, life-style etc., is a shop-lifter at shops in malls of expensive things she likes.

For sure all the four characters would exist in real life - and a story on them would be interesting. But the living context does not make it practically plausible, but this are some filmy liberties that are permitted when the director's aim is to put a specific point across.

The basic idea of the director is to give audience a SHOCK TREATMENT by showing a lot of sex scenes from the view point of being a women.

Except a few well written and directed scenes, the film falls down to being a B-C grade cinema.

Girls and women exists who also crave for sex as men is well presented. They want to break free of all the norms society lays on them. What the movie ends up in is a lop - sided portrayal of women and girls. But the point is strongly delivered.

Many people think engaging in sex, protests, anger, doing something different that no one approves is breaking Free and being LIBERAL. which is such a poor view of liberalism.

Among the four actress - Ratna Pathak and Konkona Sen excel in their portrayals, especially their culmination scenes where

Ratna is reminded of her old age and her looks and her desires and LOVE, but termed as "shameful" by throwing her on the streets. That scene broke my heart into pieces

And the culmination scene of Konkona being brutally raped by her husband and asked to stop working is another scene that brought tears to my eyes..

It is a bit difficult to sit thought the entire duration of the film without getting bored - but I sat through curiously to see - what the Director had in mind to conclude with.

Direction is below average, some scenes are so stupid, some sub-plots and characters hard to believe or digest.

The depiction of these four women too is shallow and it is only for the credit of Konkona and Ratna Pathak's maturity that - there is some depth in their characters because of their portrayals - the other two ladies are okay - nothing to write about.

There are so many (may be more than 100) scenes where the director has not taken care of continuity while shooting or editing. The placement of extras keep on changing places, and so do the make up of artists.

Overall - I think the purpose was to make a feminist point about putting across women's sexual desire issues strongly - right ON THE FACE as a slap to society in general. The film on a large part succeeds in that. But there is no subtlety in anything.

The same points could had been made with more force without using so many sexual scenes and dialogues.

If this is what they call women liberalization movement, we have to still go a long way back and start all over again...

I give this movie 5.25 rating out of 10.