A nonetheless from ‘Ahimsa’
It doesn’t matter how a lot of Susan Sontag, Simone de Beauvoir, Andrea Dworkin or Virginia Woolf you learn, you may all the time depend on Tollywood to reinvent misogyny in methods beforehand not recognized to man.
Raghu (Abhiram Daggubati) is a farmer in a distant village and a follower of the precept of Ahimsa (non-violence) taught by Mahatma Gandhi, a lot in order that even when his girlfriend Ahalya (Geethika Tiwary) — who additionally occurs to be his first cousin — requires assist after being molested, he delivers a ethical lesson to the perpetrator within the significance of respecting ladies. He is the harmless happy-go-lucky boy subsequent door who can do improper; a strict vegetarian, refuses to kiss his personal girlfriend, and preaches a sermon when she tries to gorge on some scrumptious mutton curry. He turns loving him into a chore, however like the nice textbook girlfriend, Ahalya sticks round despite the fact that she will get the quick finish of the stick from each Raghu and the filmmaker.
Ahimsa (Telugu)
Director: Teja
Cast: Abhiram Daggubati, Geethika Tiwary, Sadha, Bindu Chandramouli, Rajat Bedi
Runtime: 160 minutes
Storyline: A younger farmer is pressured to surmount troublesome challenges in his path to hunt justice for the individuals he loves.
We are launched to close-ups of Geethika’s navel even earlier than we get to know her character’s identify and the sexualisation solely retains getting worse. By turning her into a sexual object meant to be leered at by the characters and the viewers alike, the filmmakers deal with her like a provocateur and absolve the characters and themselves of any and all malicious intentions.
Raghu and Ahalya’s seemingly regular lives are disrupted when the sons of an influential man rape Ahalya and go away her unconscious by the highway. Raghu takes on the accountability to convey her rapists to justice throughout which he encounters a lady boss-esque feminine lawyer who doesn’t again down from a verbal battle within the courtroom, a cartel smuggling marijuana in thick forests, witnesses who flip hostile, and establishments that rally behind the highly effective.
Oh, there’s additionally a re-enactment of the rape scene within the hospital ward proper subsequent to the unconscious sufferer, and Raghu tries to enhance her situation by rubbing natural medication on her physique which solely makes it worse. When every thing fails, he kisses her… to convey her again to consciousness.
As if ladies of their movie and the viewers haven’t suffered sufficient already, they add one final merchandise track to ensure we don’t mistake them for feminists who care for his or her characters. One can not ignore that the majority the characters who’re killed on this quest for justice are ladies.
I stay confused concerning the filmmakers’ intentions even after sitting by means of the two-hour forty-two-minute lengthy movie that’s two hours too lengthy. At this level, I’d quite take a muscular protagonist with out morals — indulging in motion sequences and bodily hurting rapists — than watch one other minute of a stingy boy-next-door who appears to attract his heroism by solely associating with a brutalised girl and abandoning his values thereafter.
Ahimsa is at the moment working in theatres