The Representations
of Women in the Cinematic Landscape: Analyzing the Gender and Question of
Woman’s Identity in the Selected Movies of Aparna Sen
Malabika Sinha
Assistant
Professor
Department
of English
Ananda
Chandra College of Commerce
DBC
Road, Jalpaiguri
West
Bengal, India
Abstract: Aparna Sen is one of the notable directors
of Indian cinema and emerges as a distinctive voice in the explorations in her
creative world. In choosing the subjects and style of storytelling as well as
directing her films, she has attained remarkable place in comparison with
others. She addresses the issues of women, challenges the normative constructs
that bound women to be confined in the pre-defined roles. The quest for women’s
identity finds a noteworthy place in her films. Women of different strata and
their struggles are projected convincingly in her films. The technique of her
story telling is seamlessly subtle and unique encompassing multidimensional
issues and we identify the note of humanism behind the stories. This paper will
try to analyze the general philosophy of Sen that runs through her characters,
specially the women characters in the selected films, their plights, exploitations
as well as their own thoughts and resistance against the patriarchy, the
conventional and societal norms that are imposed on them, the disability and
mental illness of women and their marginalization and the human relationships,
how all these issues are projected in her films and identified in our personal
and social level.
Keywords: cinema,
culture, gender discrimination, disability, mental illness, woman’s identity
Introduction
Aparna Sen creates a unique space of her own, not only as
an actor but one of the celebrated directors of India. The story telling
technique of Aparna Sen transcends the screen, challenging the conservative
norms of patriarchal society, highlighting the dynamics of power and
representation. Sen skillfully crafts cinematic landscapes in which the lives
of women characters, their struggles, their voice of protests, the body as a
site of resistance – all these crucial issues are explored. Sen’s films through
her artistic visions portray the representations of women, the evolution of
women characters and how they navigate love, relationships, express their
repressed desires and resistance against traditional norms. It is undeniable
that Sen occupies a special position in Indian cinema and her deep impact on
the cultural and cinematic landscape.
Cinema and culture are intertwined with each other.
Literature, cinema, theatre, world politics as well as socio-political issues
and other burning issues of contemporary society deeply influence Sen’s
artistic compositions and shaping her own worldview:
Cinema has always been an integral part of
Bengal, alongside theatre and politics. Some of the most celebrated
practitioners of these arts hail from Bengal. While Bengali cinema consistently
made its mark nationally, it was Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (1955)
that brought it global recognition. Following in Ray’s footsteps, Aparna Sen
carved out a distinct space for herself as a three-time National Award-winning
director with a career spanning over four decades. Known for her nuanced and
sensitive storytelling, Sen has contributed significantly to both Bengali and
Indian cinema, earning accolades nationally and internationally. While she
began her cinematic journey as an actor, it is her work as a director that
truly defines her legacy.
This legacy ties into broader questions about gender and
aesthetics in cinema. (Sanyal 1)
In the early 1980s, Sen has emerged as one of the
distinct women directors whose celluloid works stand different from others and
specially, the women characters find noteworthy places and voices of their own:
Aparna Sen's films reflect a stark realism,
and have occasioned provocative and robust discussions among the intelligentsia
as well as her audience. Her films look at the dark edges of life that remain
unexplored in other cinemas and are informed by deeply humanistic values, and
at the same time, they are portraits of enduring relationships in a chaotic and
violent world. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that the context of each
of her films is different, as are the content, the stylistic approaches, the
music, cinematography and editing. Sen brings something intensely personal to
each of her films, which successfully critique the limits of dominant cinema in
terms of representing women. In her cinema, the women are successfully able to
find a voice of their own. (Sanyal 7-8)
Aparna Sen is one of the notable directors of Indian
cinema and emerges as a distinctive voice in the explorations in her creative
world. In choosing the subjects and style of storytelling as well as directing
her films, she has attained remarkable place in comparison with others. She
addresses the issues of women, challenges the normative constructs that bound
women to be confined in the pre-defined roles. The quest for women’s identity
finds a noteworthy place in her films. Women of different strata and their
struggles are projected convincingly in her films. The technique of her story
telling is seamlessly subtle and unique encompassing multidimensional issues
and we identify the note of humanism behind the stories. This paper will try to
analyze the general philosophy of Sen that runs through her characters,
specially the women characters in the selected films, their plights,
exploitations as well as their own thoughts and resistance against the
patriarchy, the conventional and societal norms that are imposed on them, the disability
and mental illness of women and their marginalization and the human
relationships, how all these issues are projected in her films and identified
in our personal and social level.
The Representations
of Women in Sen’s Films
The films of Sen are considered as progressive when she
deals with the issues of women, the struggles for their identities, gender
discrimination and exploitations. Her films are the reflections of the society.
Roy and Sengupta argue that Sen portrays the female characters as “having
complex reactions to the society around them[and] takes into account
specificities in their circumstances such as class positions, family
backgrounds and interpersonal relationships.” (56) Laura Mulvey’s essay
“Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” introduces the concept of ‘Male Gaze’
and the representation of women in Hollywood cinema. She argues that the
viewers see the female character through the eyes of male character. Therefore,
she is perceived as the heroine of the male character and thus as an object of
desire. If we analyze the subjects of the films of Sen, we find how being a
woman director, she portrays the multidimensional aspects of the positions of
women in the society:
The strength of Sen's films lies in the very
fact that the women find a way to live even within the dominant discourse, and
often from outside it. In her cinema, women come to symbolize traditional
values as well as the strategic undermining thereof. Sen’s strength lies in the
fact that she does not deny modernity as her characters confront traditional
values and struggle to negotiate the ‘visibility’ and ‘invisibility’ quotients
in their existence, positions and roles in society. These women constantly
reinterpret restrictive, traditional ideologies, thus helping to put forth the
idea that traditional expectations from women in a modern society are
unrealistic. (Sanyal 30)
Goynar Baksho is a
film adaptation of Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay's novel Rashmonir Shonadana and
proves as an excellent cinematic experience for the audience with the constant
interplay of changing times:
Goynar Baksho then emerges as a very personal tale of three women and
a jewellery box spread over three decades, becoming a saga of lust, love and
liberation. What the author as well as the filmmaker do is turn this is usually
stereotypical idea of women’s fondness for jewellery into a powerful document
of liberation and emancipation. The message gets all the louder and stronger
because it is brought about through the agency of women. The box of jewels,
which once symbolized the sexual and social repression of women in Pishima's world
in the 1940s, is instrumental in turning a timid Somlata into a self-sufficient
and confident working woman in the 1950s. Later still, it comes in handy during
the Bangladesh Liberation War in the 1970s through a cheeky Chaitali. (Sanyal
95)
Set against the backdrop of post partition time, this
film proves itself a notable exception that speaks for the repressed souls
across generations, time and space and even from the grave. There is blending
of historical narratives, satire, supernatural elements and mystery. Pishima,
the widowed aunt raises her voice and refuses to be cornered, Somlata, the
housewife involves herself in the financial matters for the family and
Chaitali, the politically aware woman with her own thoughts and voice. The
jewellery box is a linking thread of these three women belonging different
time, space and generations. In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler argues
that gender is not stable identity but a performance through social norms and
conventions and in this film, these three women challenge society’s traditional
norms which are imposed on them and prove that gender is a variable issue. Somlata
is considered as a traditional homemaker but she subverts the notion by taking
financial initiatives for the survival of the family. Chaitali is an
independent woman, politically involved and in opposition of conventional
society. It is the jewellery box that is not simply a physical object but a
metaphor of power and inheritance. Through the ghost of the narrator, Sen
represents the repressed soul of a woman and the exploitations faced by women
of one generation to the next. These three characters represent different modes
of resistance. The ghost of Pishima is still attached to her jewellery box and
thus denies to be perished, Somlata creates her economic space within the
household and Chaitali represents personal and political freedom. Each woman
character is imbued with historical and social context.
The home is a space which is portrayed not as place of
confinement for the female members of the family but as a place where female
solidarity gradually grows and patriarchy is challenged. Bell hooks in Yearning:
Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics refers how home place becomes “that
space where Black women could affirm one another and create communities of
resistance.” (42) Here, the domestic space becomes a space of
negotiation and resistance.
Sen’s films of disabled characters portray the concept of
disability, the roles and behaviors of the society towards them, the structure
and mindset of the family and society. Paromitar Ekdin is a film about
relationship, the struggles of two mothers – Sanaka and Paromita because they
are the mothers of mentally retarded children. Paromita is abused by her
husband when their son Bablu is diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Even the history
of her family is in question as it is genetically transmitted to her son.
Khuku, sister-in-law of Paromita becomes a burden for her family because of her
mental disability. She is excluded from all family matters and it is for her,
Sanaka is confined within the four walls of the house. Even Sanaka finds a
friend in Paromita creating an emotional bond between the two but Khuku remains
the lonely person. She only forgets the world around her, immersing herself in
the act of singing, leaving the listeners mesmerized. Meethi in 15 Park
Avenue is also a burden for her family members. Apart from Anu her elder
sister, there is none to take the responsibility of Meethi. She lives in an
imaginary world with imaginary husband and children. She has schizophrenia and
the trauma of brutally raped, triggering her dormant disease. She is deserted
by her lover after her rape. She does not have any connection with the real world.
As Parekh comments, “Meethi’s ’15 Park Avenue’ is a space of desires and
possibilities; it is neither an escape nor a delusion, but another world that
is as real as the one we tend to believe in.” (151)
Through projecting these characters, Sen highlights the
notion of disability and the challenges faced by the women and also the mothers
who give birth to their mentally retarded children:
Whereas a differently abled man is considered
unfortunate and an object of pity, a woman in the same position becomes a cause
of shame and humiliation for the family. Khuku in Paromitar Ek Din,
along with Uma (Sati) and Meethi (15 Park Avenue), are specially
abled women who are marginalized due to their deviation from the socially and
politically constructed norm of able-bodied men and women. In fact, along with
these earlier films, the disabled ‘other’ is also studied in great depth here.
Sen endows her special women with alternative ways of being. She rejects the
superficial medical and cultural standards for cognitive and physical ability,
and by portraying their inner worlds with great sensitivity, attempts to resist
their marginalization, silencing or absence. (Sanyal 129)
The problem of disability is conceptualized as power
relationship between persons with disability and non-disable persons. Benjamin
Fraser mentions that how film becomes “a reflective mirror, a productive
expression or theoretical ground for the integration of perceptions and
concepts that informs our socially negotiated understanding of disability.” (7)
The film Sati depicts a time when society isolates
and ostracizes a woman with disability. She is denied to provide any choice of
her own rather she is a victim of tradition and patriarchy. The film has many
layers as Uma is a victim of double oppression. She is marginalized for being a
woman and also a woman with disability. The oppression of women and their
exploitations by the patriarchy are examined here. Sen highlights the grim
reality that not only Sati but all women remain symbolically mute:
What makes the film Sati distinct is also the fact
that it seeks to highlight the world of a disabled woman. This, again, is a
recurring trope in Sen's films; Paromitar Ek Din and 15 Park Avenue also
deal with this issue to a great extent. They are all sensitive, sympathetic
portrayals, even if the treatments may not always be realistic. For instance,
Meethi's disappearance into thin air at the end of 15 Park Avenue is
just Sen taking recourse to magic realism, or it is her way of saying that
there is no place for a person like Meethi in the so-called normal world, or
again, that Meethi may have acquired agency and decided not to be a part of the
‘normal’ world.
While Uma may be the protagonist of Sati, the
director seems to be highlighting the lack of choice experienced by all women.
They are all, in a way, symbolically mute. (Sanyal 106)
Conclusion
The close analysis of Sen's films marks the distinction
clearly. The movies of her early career as a director mainly deal with women
centric issues and the later phase focuses on unfolded political situations. But
she not only deals with women’s issues but the various aspects like family,
socio-political-economic situations of the contemporary society, different
relationships, mental illness all find distinctive places in her cinematic
world. She is vocal about the socio political issues and through the narrative
of her films, commentary of her own is expressed vehemently. She is against the
opinion for considering herself a feminist filmmaker only, “Being a woman, the
lives of those who have suffered or continue to suffer concerns me deeply. I
know many men are concerned about it too. I have also made films which don’t
only address women’s emancipation. I can cite films made by male directors
which have talked a lot about feminism too.” (25)
She refers herself as a humanist and considers feminism
as a part of humanism. She is well known for her socio political observations
and activism. The theme of marginalization is a big issue in her narrative and
those who remain left behind, find space in her films as Sen’s films highlight
the issues of gender dynamics and inner workings of women’s mind.
Her films thus come to talk about or
represent a pluralistic society, or at least her visions of one. When one looks
at her women characters, one gets the sense that Sen is attempting a miracle of
sorts – making women capable enough to wrest agency in the face of loss and
grief. Not only does she deal with issues that are specific to women, larger
questions of economic and social emancipation are also dealt with in her
oeuvre. Goynar Baksho is an excellent example of this, so is Parama.
These are films which are tied together by common themes and threads, but at
the same time, they succeed in standing on their own as works of art that
attempt to make the world a little saner, a little brighter, a little better. (Sanyal
164-165)
Works Cited
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion
of Identity. Routledge, 1990.
Fraser, Benjamin. Cultures of Representation: Disability in
World Cinema Contexts. Wallflower Press, 2016.
Ghosh, Suman. The Worlds of Aparna: Suman Ghosh in
Conversation with Aparna Sen. Simon & Schuster India, 2025.
Hooks, Bell. Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural
Politics. South End Press, 1990.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual
Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen,
vol. 16, no.3, 1975, pp. 6-18.
Parekh, Pushpa Naidu.
“Gender, Disability and the Postcolonial Nexus.” Wagadu. Special Issue: Intersecting Gender and Disability
Perspectives in Rethinking Postcolonial Identities, vol. 4, 2007, pp. 142-161.
Roy, Mantra and Aparajita
Sengupta. “Women and emergent agency in the cinema of Aparna Sen.” South Asian Popular Culture, vol. 12,
no. 2, 2014, pp. 53-71.
Sanyal, Devapriya. Aparna Sen: A Life in Cinema. Rupa
Publications India Pvt. Ltd, 2025.