Human Rights Film Festival: Lipstick Under My Burka
Saturday night’s screening concluded my experience at this year’s Syracuse University Human Rights Film Festival. Although this was the last film I saw at the festival, there were two others, The Good Postman and Plastic China, that were screened earlier in the day while I continued checking assignments off my to-do list. It’s important to note that this film wasn’t a documentary like the others I saw and was also banned in India until recently for being “too lady oriented”.
All four women in this film wanted freedom. They had some degree of freedom that challenged what my understanding of a woman’s place in Indian society was, but even that perceived “freedom” clearly had its restraints. Rehana, the youngest of the four women, wore a burka but ditched it when she arrived at the university each day and idolized Miley Cyrus. Leela, a beautician, was engaged via an arranged marriage but spent more time with her photographer lover than her fiance. Shireen was a housewife who quietly rebelled against her husband by working as a saleswoman. Usha, the widowed matriarch lovingly referred to as “Auntie”, enrolled in swim lessons and took on a younger, sexier persona during steamy phone calls with her much younger swim coach. Each woman leads an alternative life in an attempt to exercise freedom from the societal constraints, pressures, and demands of being a woman in Bhopal, India.
It would be easy for me to relate this movie to American films that have similarities, but I won’t do that because this film deserves its credit and praise without Western comparisons. Although the number of Indian films I’ve seen is low, this film was incredibly unique, refreshing and unlike others I’ve seen where women are more or less waiting for a man to make their lives better with an insanely beautiful and elaborate wedding at the end.
These women took control of their lives and created an alternative, even if it was a short-lived alternative for some of them. From my perspective, the choices Rehana, Leela, Shireen and Usha made were solely for their own empowerment and that’s extremely important to how each progresses throughout the film. At one point, Rehana is participating in a demonstration about a clothing policy and she says to someone filming “Why does our freedom scare you so?” That line alone made this film relatable beyond cultural differences for me because women around the world could easily ask that question of their own families, communities or national societies.
The title of this film caught my attention, and the screening had me hooked from start to finish. I could go on elaborating about how awesome Lipstick Under My Burka was, but I think I made myself clear. The director wasn’t there to have a post-screening Q&A like the other films, but there was a proposal for a post-screening discussion with the audience led by the film festival co-directors. I unfortunately couldn’t stay for this, but I’ll wrap this up by leaving a link below for you to learn more.
More information about the film: https://www.facebook.com/LipstickUnderMyBurkha/
