Feminist Film Review - Fanaa. Review on Fanaa

Before I begin I must make some confessions. First, I am not at all a movie buff, I used to be one, there was a time when I was to live on ‘films’, but then things ‘change’. Secondly, I think all critiques are crap.

Let me also explain what exactly is a feminist film review. My review is not something that you can read and then decide whether to watch the movie or not.  I am not here to guide you through your movie watching ordeals. I am not going to tell you what the movie was about neither am I going to advice you for or against a certain film.  What I am going to do is wear my little feminist glasses and salute those rare moments in our mainstream movies, those which don’t otherwise deal with topics of gender, patriarchy or feminism, and yet reflects gender deconstructions and crib about those which re affirms.

Kunal Kohli's film Fanaa, starring Aamir Khan and Kajol made under the banner of Yashraj Films.

In few lines Fanaa is a love story between a terrorist and a middle class girl who is blind. She didn’t fall in love with a terrorist because love is blind and so is she but because he pretended to be a tourist guide. He then plotted his own death and fled away from her life. Destiny forced him to knock at her door 7 years later leading to questions of life and death.

Coming from a banner known for its patriarchal movies, one wouldn’t expect Fanaa to be any different. But with Aamir and Kunal there I knew Fanaa won’t fail me. And it didn’t. In Fanaa we have many such moments for which I want to thank Kunal, a person I adore since his small screen days as a film critique himself.

First up, we have Kajol, a middle class Muslim girl, for whom pre marital sex isn’t a sin. Who doesn’t want the man to have a guilt conscious for having slept with her without commitments, she takes complete responsibilities of her feelings and desires both of heart and body, and takes pride, with her head held high, in giving the man his freedom to follow his priorities, without trying to cling on to him for a support system.

Second, we have Kajol’s parents for whom acceptance of their daughter’s pregnancy without marriage is a given fact. There is no noise about it in the movie. Acceptance comes without arguments for or against. This when we don’t have a secret nikaah happening between them at any point, which could justify the pregnancy in the moral police’s eyes.

Then we have Tyaagi. A fierce intelligence officer who have been specially deployed to track down this deadly terrorist. The other major officers of the department soon began to talk about Tyaagi in part jealous and part respectful voices about the posting and taking over the case.

As the audience hear more about officer Tyaagi, they expect to see a dashing Sunny Deol ala Damini or an Om Puri or a Sunil Shetty entering the scene.  Interestingly, all references to Tyaagi so far were, very smartly made in gender neutral statements. And then tyaagi enters and behold, we have Tabu a lady officer in ‘Tyaagi’.  One of the few times when a woman is addressed by her last name, otherwise the family surname is the man's property to carry and flaunt. Without much ado (NOshe isn’t Tejaswini) Tyaagi proves she is sharper, smarter and more dedicated to her job than her male counterpart.

To make things subtle yet assertive we have a scene where Tabu talks to her child on cell phone. She says (in hindi), “I know my child that you don’t like Kheer much but halwa, but have it if grand ma have made it with love.”  Hearing this her macho male counterpart who has been outshined by her presence passes some silly comment, like “yeah right mom is going to save the country”, and when some body gets a file to take a look at he says, "What have you got, Kheer or Halwa?" Tyaagi  simply ignores these comments and continues talking to her child.

In continuation with the same scene, one of the junior officers is heard talking about a certain Army officer’s wife getting worried about her husbands whereabouts, as she didn’t hear from him for weeks, whereas the army headquarters had this information, that her husband had recently faced an encounter with the terrorist and was the soul survivor of that scuffle but was now safe and sound.

The macho officer cracks a silly sexist joke again, “all these wives are the same naggers I tell you, she must have nagged him on some thing like kheer or halwa which has forced him to run away.”

Tabu on the other hand, starts immediately inquiring more about this army officer, while she was still on phone with her daughter, as she suspected the sole survivor captain to be the terrorist in disguise.

In real life, I see professional men making such sexist jokes about wives and women in general day in and out. The lawyers fraternity is one of the most male dominated place. At lunch on one of those days when I used to be in litigation, we had all opened our lunch boxes to find out that all (except me and I was the only female) had the same sabji (bhindi bole to lady finger). This colleague of mine quickly cracked a joke, “this explains all woman like to cook the same vegetable”. What da…?? Exactly how??  I thought but said, “not really, this explains all men deserve the same monotonous taste of a vegetable as stupid as lady finger.”