I watched two movies in the recent past which dealt with two different present day problems. The first movie is ‘Stoning of Soraya M’ is extremely bold and emotionally disturbing. I am unable to express in words my emotional state after watching it. Some of the scenes are so bold and true and violent that I had to fast forward them. The movie is from a real life story happened in a village in Iran in 1986 after the Shah was overthrown and Islamists take over the country - where a young woman was stoned to death by her husband, father, sons and neighbors and extended families. Her abusive husband of 20 years plotted with the village head clergy and Mayor to kill her by stoning accusing her of trying to seduce another man. The only fault of that woman was that she decided against divorcing her husband which would result to death by starvation along with her two daughters. The story was licked to the world by her extremely courageous aunt to a French journalist. I think the movie is not about infidelity of a woman and how she is punished as per religion; it is more about the violence and the wrong utilization of power against the helpless ones. The main intension of the movie is to let the world know about the fate of unfortunate, powerless and innocent people whose only intent is to have faith in God and lead a simple life. The details of the stoning scenes along with the heart wrenching dialogues make the movie a must see. At the end definitely viewers will not support death by stoning even for a hard-core criminal and definitely question themselves about their ability to stop these happenings in certain part of the world. The movie is successful in conveying its intensions.
The second movie is ‘Peepli Live’ – it is about death of farmers and the role of media, government and religion. This movie is more about depicting the problem rather than solving it. The movie touched the heart even though I expected a solution from the movie makers as the movie is about something we all know but desperately need a solution. For ages almost all Indian movies are crafted around the evil politicians, worthless journalists and the poor Indians as victims. But the essence of the movie is how aptly it captured the recent spurge in the number of suicides among farmers and how that result in migration of farmers to cities for survival. In fact the movie reached its target when the Anglicized agricultural minister himself is citing Industrialization as a solution to stop this. It blankly showed how today's education is useless in resolving actual problem and make mediocre people rise to a position unfit for him. An agricultural minister of one of the largest democracy cannot even think about the long term effect of migration of farming lands to industrialization. We need farmlands to feed us and then only can enjoy the material life provided by high-risers or ac car. Considering the fact that few directors have the guts to show it in such a bold but matter of fact way I give kudos to this movie. I also liked the depiction of the fortunate few who behave naïvely and discuss the problem with a cup of expensive tea. The best part of the movie is the question by the young journalist – Why Nathu is so important, when there are several more farmers in the same village who are dying or already dead? The movie made us think that we should question our ability to resolve issues around us, concentrating less on our demands and futile achievements.
