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Even Udta Punjab proved that the filmmaker can get the point across without getting into graphic details to relate the horror of the crime across to the audience. There is no doubt that in recent times, filmmakers have become sensitive to how rape scenes are shot and presented. Ditto for Kaabil and Sanjay Gupta for filming the dual rape scenes in his film. I came away with respect for the director Ravi Udyawar.
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There was no tearing of the victim’s clothes, flashes of bosom and thighs, or men leering over her. That is how the gang rape scene was shown in Sridevi’s Mom. Nothing is shown, yet the audience knows exactly the nature of the crime taking place inside the moving vehicle. The car is back on the road and so is the music. The two men in the front exchange seats with the two men at the back. The eerily haunting music that accompanies the shot is enough to give you the chills. An aerial shot shows the car moving along the deserted streets of Delhi, with only the stray dogs for company. A hard punch on the face leaves her stunned. Another comes running and lifts her up and she is thrown into the car. Two men pick up a girl in a red dress as she struggles. I was reluctant to watch both films because I knew it involved molestation scenes. And Mom in which Sridevi seeks to wreck hell on the men who ravaged her daughter. Kaabil - in which Hrithik Roshan sets out to seek revenge for his wife’s rape. There were two releases with the rape-revenge theme. Thankfully, that is where the filmmakers of today’s generation are different, or at least, are trying to be. A number of films made during the ’80s and ’90s in Bollywood depicted rape sequences in graphic detail. Recall the 1980-film Insaf Ka Tarazu where Raj Babbar rapes Zeenat Aman and later, commits the same crime with her younger sister, played by Padmini Kolhapure? The scenes left nothing to the imagination. But such rape scenes slowly (and thankfully) disappeared. They were uncomfortably long and graphic, with attention to detail. Unfortunately, many such scenes were filmed for that explicit intention. I remember a particularly disturbing rape scene filmed on Shilpa Shirodkar and Anupam Kher in Bhrashtachar on a round revolving bed, shot in slow motion. For decades, Hindi films have shown scenes or sexual assault with little or no sensitivity. There was a time when you saw an unknown actress playing the role of the hero’s sister, you could bet that she would get crudely raped at some point in the film. Graphic rape scenes, a staple in Hindi films for over three decades, vanished from our films. Something changed when no one was looking. Hindi filmmakers are often trashed for their depiction of women on screen, for making eveteasing acceptable, for not giving women meaty roles, not making female-centric films, degrading women by making them do item songs. Clockwise: A still from Kaabil Mom Prem Granth Damini and Matrubhoomi