Rudaali

Rudaali is a movie directed by Kalpana Lajmi. It is set in a village in Rajasthan, but the village life shown in this movie reflects the reality of rural life across most of the rest of India. A rudaali is a professional mourner who's paid to cry at peoples' death. This movie reveals the tough and sad life villagers go through, focusing on topics like the caste system, poverty, the ज़मीदार ("Landlord") system, prostitution, disease (cholera): in general, the backward and limited life in villages in comparison to cities. These issues are concluded intelligently when the protagonist of the movie decides to live the rest of her life as a rudaali after she can finally cry out all the grief, she's been through in her life.

Growing up in India, I never knew some professionals worked as "Rudaali". It was an interesting story with a lot of interesting characters, from that of Amjad Khan who is scared of his mortality while on his deathbed, enough to summon a Rudaali ('cos he knew no one would be sad enough to shed a tear when he is gone) to the other that all played interesting characters. A lot of issues and themes are brought up-- the class structure, exploitation of poor/weak, infidelity, prostitution, the culture of hypocrisy and double standard, etc. TV shows and Bollywood movies usually choose Rajasthan or nearby states if they need to set something because the language of these states is similar enough to Hindi for Hindi-Urdu speakers to understand it without it being modified too much.

Sanichari is a character who is very well-written, never becoming a victim and being quite heroic. She is a true modification of the many self-victimizing heroines seen in Hindi films. In one of the film's interesting elements, Shanichari turns down the sexual advances of the young landlord. The latter, who shows to be much less superstitious than people around, desires her greatly, but not in the sleazy sense, and never uses force to get her. He further lets her know that she is the one creating the hell around her and stops herself from living, expressing contempt for any caste issues and encouraging her to always look up, and ultimately shows great admiration for the moral principles and convictions that guide this woman and awards her a house and two acres of land.

The film's narrative is stupendous, filled with music and colour in what could be considered by viewers a most difficult setting. The film is supposed to be more or less an art film, Rudaali is wonderfully realistic. The outcome is a film which is both engaging, affecting, and enjoyable, which would probably fall under the category of middle-of-the-road cinema and could be enjoyed and appreciated by different segments of its potential audience.