Short Film Review: Khabsurat (Repulsive, 2021)

Within the framework of patriarchy, a woman’s sexual freedom would always, and unflinchingly, be called into question.The rules and regulations imposed by men strictly determine the patterns of gender relations, minimising women's independence and offering males greater sexual liberty and wider freedom. This power usually functions through body control, moralizing of desire, or suppression of deviant identities.  In Ashutosh Pathak's short film Khabsurat, a woman's desire to explore her body becomes a terrain of personal agency and a site of cultural conflict, as it involves an entanglement with questions around consent, shame, and empowerment.    

Barkha (Naina Sareen) is an ambitious dancer from a small town who lives in a rented house in Mumbai.  During a photo shoot, she becomes intimately entwined with a photographer who is a friend.  Their intimate act is captured, and when she fights with him, the video gets leaked, bringing her shame and embarrassment.  Her family comes to know about it, and they send her cousin Shivang (Shardul Bhardwaj) to bring her back home.  As he tries to convince her to leave the city and abandon her dreams, a clash ensues that sets filial obligations against personal ambition and conflicts between tradition and the quest for independence.    

Most of the drama unfolds in the confined spaces of the car and the house. The claustrophobic environment reinforces the rigidity of social norms and strictures in which the protagonist finds herself trapped. Shivang is a male who comprehends Barkha but cannot liberate himself from the deep-seated patriarchy inside him.  He attempts to console Barkha by promoting the dogmatic belief that her body is linked to the family. In doing this, he lays a burden of guilt upon her, and this can be considered a strategy designed to make her pay the cost of freedom merely because she is a woman.  When she stops her from walking out of the flat, Barkha breaks into a dance.  As her body swings to the energetic rhythms of the song, she challenges these rigid structures contesting the dynamics of power inside them, and what they have determined about gender, pleasure, and self. Her rebellious act also probes the wider cultural and psychological implications that go with them.    

Naina Sareen, as Barkha, gives an evocative, restrained performance as a simple woman who is confident beyond any deviation in her search for freedom and identity. She is aware that her decision comes at the cost of isolating herself from all the loved ones around her. Shardul Bhardwaj as Shivang portrays his character with complete ease. How he convinces his cousin to honour the decisions of the family elders while maintaining his integrity and dignity is remarkable.    

Khabsurat capture the complex emotions of the protagonist as she tries to challange the stricter family and societal conventions that tend to dictate her future choices. Through this film, Pathak weaves an astute narrative that tells the struggle of a woman seeking independence and self-fulfilment in a society that is controlled by subservience and renunciation more than personal ambition.

Khabsurat is available on YouTube. 

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