52 Films by Women Vol 8. 20. Girls Will Be Girls (Director: Shuchi Talati)
Indian mainstream
cinema is highly conservative. Bollywood (that is, Indian studio) films
highlight stars and spectacle rather than a film director’s personal vision.
Bollywood has not yet experienced its 1960s moment when audiences rejected
‘factory setting’ entertainment in favour of something edgier and more
realistic. India has produced auteur cinema, but it exists in parallel to
Bollywood output. Directors such as Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen succeeded
internationally but didn’t reshape Bollywood output in the way that directors
such as John Frankenheimer, Sam Peckinpah, Sidney Lumet and Arthur Penn
introduced a gritty, unpredictability to 1960s Hollywood films. India doesn’t
lack cineaste film directors, but they tend to make films that mimic mainstream
Hollywood within constraints rather than challenge Bollywood convention.
Following in the
footsteps of Mira Nair, the American-trained Shuchi Talati is the latest film
director working in India to produce a film that represents lived experience as
opposed to heightened genre thrills. It is doubtful that her English language
debut feature, Girls Will Be
Girls, will be screened in
multiplexes alongside the latest Zee Studios release. It deals with female
sexuality and relationships in a way that makes conservative audiences feel
uncomfortable. Indian audiences supposedly visit the cinema to forget about the
obligations of daily living rather than contemplate societal norms.
The title Girls Will Be Girls is anodyne. It suggests an ensemble film
about a group of young women who go on vacation looking for thrills, excitement
or to forget, rather like Girls
Just Wanna Have Fun, Where the Boys Are or latterly Girls Trip. In fact,
the film has a single protagonist, sixteen-year-old high achiever, Mira (Preeti
Panigrahi) who at the start is named Head Prefect of a private school. She
attracts the interest of a taller, older student, Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron) who
forms an Astronomy Club, though his telescopic sight is somewhat below the
waist. Their relationship is complicated by the interest that Mira’s mother, Anila
(Kani Kusruti) takes in him, to the extent that in one overnight stay, older
woman and young man share a bed – purely for the sake of sparing the young
man’s back on the harsh sofa, you understand. Tensions between daughter and
mother rise. We expect that, at some point, Mira will be knocked off her
pedestal.
From a Western
perspective, a film like Girls
Will Be Girls is difficult to
watch because audiences are participating in an entertainment that risks the
ostracization of its lead actress by a conservative Indian society. In the
West, actresses who impress in independent productions eventually get their
shot in Hollywood. However, it is very unlikely that Panigrahi will become a
Bollywood star as her realistic portrayal of a teenager exploring her sexuality
offends conservative tastes. As a Westerner, demanding that Indian mores change
is act of hubris bordering on neo-colonialism. What one would hope for is
change from within, driven by greater participation of women in the production
of Bollywood films, driven in turn by audience appetite for a different type of
cinema. Parallel cinema cannot be a long-term accommodation.
As the film opens
with the sound of parade ground-type shuffling, we quickly sense that the
society we are about to be introduced to is heavily regulated. However, we
don’t see soldiers, rather students, standing in rows in their neat school
uniforms and striped ties, lacking, one notes, a school badge. There is a
pledge to honour the school’s behavioural code but there is also a
contradiction. Classes are co-ed. If the teachers really wanted boys and girls
to behave themselves, they would have educated them separately.
Mira steps forward
to accept her new badge and role, reciting the pledge, then addressing students
in groups of one or two, including a girl who has red nail varnish, who pledges
to wash it off. In class, Mira is given her marked test paper, having scored 19
out of 20. A male student asks to look at it, getting the attention of Sri to
in turn ask Mira. Mira dutifully allows her paper to be shared with the boy.
Sri receives his marked paper, scoring 8 out of 20. He is not a particularly
dedicated student, his parents shuttling between India and Hong Kong; he was
previously educated in an international school in the latter country. When we
next see Sri, he asks Mira to help pin up his poster for Astronomy Club. Mira
does so, Sri standing uncomfortably close behind her. He then presses in a
second drawing pin at the bottom of the poster, coming across as creepy.
Neither we nor Mira are charmed. Afterwards, we see Mira lock away the safety
pins in a wall locker marked ‘Head Prefect’. Take that, Romeo.
Pictured: Mira (Preeti Panigrahi) addresses her school as Head Prefect in a scene from the Indian drama, 'Girls Will Be Girls', written and directed by Shuchi Talati. Still courtesy of Sundance Institute / LuxBox / Modern Films.
Mira is an only child. Her father works; her mother is a housewife. Anila first appears at the school handing out sweets to students. Mira is embarrassed. ‘Parents are not allowed to distribute sweets,’ she tells her. ‘Yes, I am,’ Anila tells her. ‘I am an ex-student.’
Mira is entrusted
with a set of keys that she will use to lock up the rooftop after Astronomy
Club concludes. Sri invites her to look through the telescope, while he focuses
it. ‘It’s beautiful,’ Mira exclaims, referring to the night sky. Mira hangs
around as Sri packs away his equipment. We learn that he previously ran an
Astronomy Club in Hong Kong. The next day Mira hands back the set of keys to a
teacher, who admonishes her for keeping them overnight. Mira apologises for her
mistake.
There are other
standards that need to be maintained. At one point, a girl is made to stand on
a chair. Mira is asked to stand on a chair next to her. Mira’s skirt falls just
above the knee. The other girl’s skirt is much shorter. Students are reminded
of the dress code.
At a certain point,
Sri arranges to study with Mira. He visits her house. He sits uncomfortably
close to Mira, but she doesn’t mind too much. He asks for a quiz. For each
correct answer, one of them touches the other. Sri is about to touch Mira’s
breasts. She is embarrassed. ‘My breasts are saggy. I’m wearing a push up bra.’
‘You’re perfect,’ Sri tells her, the smooth-talking so-and-so.
During revision, they
have been answering questions on the doMirant skin colour. In Indian culture,
lighter skinned people are more doMirant. Mira’s mother, Anila is dark-skinned.
We sense that some of her behaviour towards Sri is driven by repression. She
married Mira’s father when he was twenty-one and she was a similar age. It
wasn’t a love match but appears to have become one. One of the weaknesses of
Talati’s screenplay is that Mira’s father barely appears. We expect him to have
an opinion about Mira’s future.
Sri and Mira’s study
sessions are increasingly supervised, with Anila leaving them alone and
offering to make strawberry milkshake later. In one scene, they wait for Anila
to take a shower before getting close to one another. But then the sound of the
shower stops, and they return to their positions. Mira nods off and awakens to
discover her mother talking to Sri. ‘Where’s my milkshake?’ she asks sharply.
Anila is quite fond of the young man, not knowing that he takes her daughter to
an internet café to learn about sex.
Mira is surprised to
learn that Sri knows how to please a woman. He is familiar with the clitoris
and what to do with his hand. He explains that he had an ex-girlfriend,
presumably in Hong Kong. Mira wants to learn how to touch a man. Her boldness
is a turn-on. At a clothes shop, Anila encourages Mira to purchase a
short-sleeved blouse, tied up at the waist, and a pair of shorts. The outfit
seems risqué.
Pictured: Mira (Preeti Panigrahi) and Anila (Kani Kusruti) in a scene from the English language Indian drama, 'Girls Will Be Girls', written and directed by Shuchi Talati. Still courtesy of Sundance Institute / LuxBox / Modern Films
Neither Mira nor Sri
have friends with whom they confide. For Sri it is understandable. For Mira, it
is because she has responsibilities. At one point, Mira and Sri take an outdoor
trip. Mira pulls out a condom and hands it to Sri. Their encounter is awkward.
We hear him bring himself to an erection before putting it on (off-screen). On
top of Mira, he barely moves. However, Talati suggests that Mira loses her
virginity.
The film builds to
Sri’s 18th birthday party. Anila telephones the school to request
permission to hold it at her house. There is cake. Both Mira and Anila eat the
cake from Sri’s fingers. Then Sri licks some cake from Mira’s fingers. Anila
feels left out. Then Anila shows Sri the sofa. Mira plans to sneak into to the
living room when mother is asleep, but Anila wants the door locked. There is an
argument in which Sri is offered Mira’s bed and Mira shares a bed with her
mother. ‘You snore,’ Mira complains. In the end, Sri shares a bed with Anila. Mira
sleeps in her own bed. She arranges to wake up Sri at five am in order that
they can study, knocking at the door. Sri asks for another half an hour. At
half past five, he asks for more time. Even after six am, he won’t get up. He
was talking to Anila until late, he explains. His relationship with Mira is
spiralling downwards. Mira tapes a message for Sri which he does not
acknowledge, claiming that he does not have his Walkman (suggesting that the
film is set in the 1990s). She wonders whether she is experiencing ‘puppy love
or big-time love’. He doesn’t meet her after school as she requests.
In the finale, it is
Teacher Day. Mira wears a sari. Anila wants to help pin it on. Mira dismisses
her mother after Anila jabs her with a pin. Mira addresses the class but some
boys, heading towards the podium, jeer her. Mira is upset. Given a set of keys,
she heads for the roof. None of the keys open it. Sri follows her, offering to
get the roof key. ‘Everyone has a key,’ he adds. The boys spot her, and Mira
flees, locking herself inside a classroom. She calls her mother to escort her
home. A teacher asks Mira about reports that she has behaved inappropriately
with Sri. Anila defends her daughter’s honour.
In the aftermath,
Sri visits Anila and Mira. Mira asks what her key is. Anila’s key is that she
wants everyone to enjoy her cooking, though out of Anila’s earshot, Sri
explains that Anila just wants attention.
Girls Will Be
Girls certainly picks up in the
second half, but it is a slow burner. Mira is not the only student flouting the
rules, but there is no sense that order will be challenged. Talati demonstrates
that a young woman’s power is tentative, requiring the approval of men. It isn’t
a compelling love story either, rather about curiosity. However, Talati leaves
much that is unresolved. This would appear to be intentional. In the tradition
of Latin American ‘imperfect cinema’, the film invites audiences to ask questions.
Reviewed at Sundance London, Picture House Central, Shaftesbury Avenue, Monday 3 June 2024, 14:00 Press Screening
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