Great Indian Movies - Matrubhoomi. Review on Matrubhoomi: A Nation Without Women

According to Ministry of India, there are estimated 35 million female infants are missing in last century due to gender discrimination like female infanticide, abortion, and dowry related deaths. According to 2001 census, UP, MP, Bihar, Bengal, and Rajasthan have 800-900 women per 1000 men. If you are further delve into rural area, female to male sex ratio numbers are shocking as alarming low as 700-750 women per 1000 men which is more than enough to havoc sex ratio instability in any society. Even in 21st century India, every family wants sons rather than daughters regardless of their social stature. If we don’t stop this then we will face worst future demographic imbalance due to abortion.

In Matrubhoomi, Manish Jha tackles this delicate issues and venture into imaginary futuristic scenario of rural India’s village, where rural sex ratio reaches at absolute low that women are hard to find because of female infanticide. Without women, men take over housework but can't fulfill their sexual urges. Jha concentrates his futuristic scenario on how men become sex-starved beasts in nation without women.

Story

In present India, in a small village, every newborn girl babies are ritually drowned in a cauldron of milk. Years later in the same village, there are no women left and men use alternative sources like pornography, homosexuality bestiality, and violence to satisfy their sexual frustration.

Small family of rich landlord and widower Ramcharan is looking for brides for his five sons. Accidentally, village priest spots the beautiful girl, Kalki (Tulip Joshi). In the exchange of large dowry, she is promptly married to five brothers. All five and the father-in-law take turns to have sex with her. She quickly becomes sexual toy and laborer in her new house. Only youngest son Suraj treats her like a human being. As she starts coming closer to the youngest son and falls in love with him, eldest brother kills the youngest one. She turns to her father for refuge but the father blinded with dowry lets her down. After her attempt to escape with the low caste servant boy, brothers kill servant, recaptures Kalki, and ties her up with iron chains in the barn, and rapes her repeatedly. As lower caste villagers trying to take revenge of servant boy, they found Kalki in barnyard. Instead of taking revenge on brothers, villagers in turn rapes Kalki. Eventually Kalki becomes pregnant and everyone in village claims paternity of the child. These triggers off a caste war and every man in village get killed. Finally she gives birth to a girl as a hope.

Analysis

I heard Jha read an article about village in Gujarat where men having serious problems getting married because of unavailability of marriageable age girls. He further researched reason behind scarcity of woman and created this hard-hitting drama. Since I grew up in one of the village in Gujarat, I am well aware of situations in my village. If you are landlord, educated, or NRI, you don't have any problems getting married but if you are doing labor, farming, and does not have enough money then you have to forget about getting married. As I am writing right now, we have huge scarcity of marriageable age girls in our local upper caste community, more than 10% men already crossed age 35 without getting married, and nearly 5% men bought lower caste women from nearby state borders. That's the reason movies like Matrubhoomi works for me.

One of the problem people complained about Matrubhoomi is its fundamentally implausible fictional scenario. We see young men, boys, and only one woman. We don't see any adult women who gave birth to all these young men. I agree this is impossible. I personally think its lazy screenplay – we understand why we don’t see child girls because of infanticide but director failed to tell us why all adult women are disappeared eventually. I wish screenplay had spent some time convincing us why adult women wiped out from society for e.g. women ran away to cities to avoid further oppression, murdering young teens as dowry deaths. But, Matrubhoomi is not about logic. It is all about creating gruesome fictional prototype to depict social warning of possible future.

Matrubhoomi is disturbing, disgusting, sickening, yet most thought provoking film Indian industry ever produced. It will run through your nervous system, punch you into your guts, and your senses will go numb. Jha pushed limit of censer board as much as he can. He took route of most extreme approach and get succeed making statement and raising much-needed questions. No one should complain whatsoever regarding movie being disgusting and depressing because that’s what the director intended to achieve. It is not entertainer. Idea of gruesome images in the movie is to make you think and face harsh reality of our society. If people think this is vulgar movie and ignore social warning of female exploitation then one of the best efforts will go unnoticed. If this movie can't awaken our society then it is shame.

Some of the most shocking sequences are involved with Tulip Joshi. Her lifeless and painful facial expressions makes her character believable. Her progressive degradation and ice-cold reactions while involved with different men almost every day is masterly crafted. I understand outrage run through viewers mind after watching these taboo line crossed scenes but it was necessary as hard-hitting approach. This is great example of killing poison with poison, shaping iron with iron, and sympathizing female by abusing females.

Matrubhoomi is blessed with stark cinematography, crisp editing, and thundering background score. Jha shot whole movie realistically in remote village in MP showing rural landscapes, higher cast havelis, lower caste huts, village streets making as authentic as you can imagine. Salim-Suaiman’s powerful background music elevates many tense scenes to another level.

There are many shocking and disgusting scenes throughout movie. You should not watch this movie with family members or young children. It is shocker for traditional Indian audience. Even though there are no onscreen nudity, there are scenes like group of men reacting cross dresser man as stripper, group of men watching and masturbating to badly copied porn video, men seeking sexual relief with barnyard animals, father attempting to marry young boy off disguised as a woman, young servant urinate into sherbet glass prior to serving it to pundit, pundit farts openly in public, men repeatedly rape bruised woman like beast, woman tied up with shackles into barnyard alongside the animals, and homosexual relationship of pundit with young men. Most of all these scenes are well executed and edited to make sure viewers are disgusted how we abuse women in our society and what can be worse case scenario.

One of the most fulfilling and touching scenes of the movie are opening and ending scenes – Movie starts with the death of the child girl and era of harrowing abuse of women begins and in the climax, when every men get killed, movie ends with the birth of another child girl as hope. It is open ending and Jha throws ball into audience’s court and make us to think whether she will become another Kalki or are we going to do something about female exploitation in our society.

Conclusion

Matrubhoomi is social cautionary tale and explores the impact of absence of women on men. You need strong stomach to sit through this dark, grim, powerful and thought provoking account of possible future. Even if it manages to save a few hundreds of girl babies from getting killed or unborn girl babies from being aborted then it is worth effort. Movies like this are the main reason I love cinema. A must see for serious moviegoers.