Mardaani passes the Bechdel test. And more. But our beloved Bechdel Test can sometimes be way too tame to throw at seriously exploding movies. So, inspired by Mardaani, we’ve come up with a new set of rules.
A Bechdel Test (on steroids) for Mardaani:- 1) Are there are two named men in the film?
- 2) Have at least 10 female characters kicked the teeth out of the male villain?
- 3) Have at least one of these women held forth for over 10 mins in a strangely prescient, human-rights inflected way about the predicament of being a women?
Needless to say, the film passes these new rules.
Mardaani’s biggest problem though is a complete lack of balance. Everything is extreme.
- Here is a list of the film’s most glaring imbalances:
- 1) All the hero-style one liners (mostly unfunny) > Believable interiority
- 2) A soul-killing yamaha synthesizer soundtrack > Moments of actual narrative tension
- 3) Portraying women as perpetual victims > Showing them have little, non life-changing triumphs
- 4) A Madhur Bhandarkar black and white moral universe > Genuinely spunky female characters
- 5) An earnest social realist film about sex trafficking > A you-go girl *whistle* *whistle* script with chak de moments
- 6) A female protagonist with a non-stop action life who chronically overcompensates > A woman who might, on occasion, stop and think
August 28, 2014 at 6:23 am
I am confused, did you like the film or not?
December 12, 2014 at 6:36 am
sanjukta It’s not that simple. This isn’t a review of the movie. It’s comment on the representation of women in the movie. You can clap through an entire movie and still come out dissatisfied with the themes in it.