Critics were hoping that the Odia movie ‘Drustikona,’ released last week, would herald a new wave in Odia cinema. Although it does stand out among the movies released in the recent past, it falls short of the prediction, with the whole plot getting mired in courtroom drama and unnecessary dilution of the subject.
Produced by Akshaya Parija and directed by Susanta Mani, the story revolves around a woman being gang-raped by men under the influence of liquor. To erase the evidence, they murder both the victim and her fiance. What follows is high octave courtroom arguments on how the woman’s assets (read breasts) were to be blamed for luring the men.
While the movie in general, can be considered a crime thriller, the most interesting aspect is the reference to a form of tax, known as the ‘Breast Tax’ the Kingdom of Travancore (present-day State of Kerela).
The film is engaging. Debutante Subhashree pulls off a decent performance as Kuhu.
The “breast tax” had been imposed by the king of the erstwhile State of Travancore, one of the 550 princely states that existed in British ruled India. Women from lower castes were not allowed to cover their breasts and were taxed heavily if they did so. The purpose of the breast tax was to maintain the caste structure until a woman named Nangeli protested and refused to pay taxes even when she covered her breasts in public. The village head and other men publicly harassed her by disrobing her and assessing her breasts’ shape and size to determine the tax she would have to pay. Feeling humiliated, Nangeli cut off her breasts and thus died on the spot.
Drustikona ends with the judge holding the accused guilty.
The plot is guaranteed to draw a lot of appreciation from viewers. However, the courtroom sequence is a drag, representing the Indian legal system in poor light. The entire courtroom footage relies on the element of drama, ignoring the finer aspects of the legal system, trivialising it in the whole process. The director seems to be more involved in his plot. Clearly, not enough homework has been done in depicting the loopholes and the strong points of the legal system.
Like any other movie, the entire police investigation is concluded instantly. The same police department which couldn’t find any evidence initially, mysteriously connects all the dots thanks to the arrival of a super cop and lo and behold, the trial is completed in a day. When did this start happening in our country?
The defence lawyer is painted as a villain whose sole intention is to prove that what happened on that night was nothing but consensual sex between the victim and the accused and the woman’s curvaceous body was the reason for her death. Now, this advocate has supposedly never lost a case and has an excellent reputation even in the country’s Apex court, yet in the present case, he chooses to argue on so-called moral ethics. It was also intriguing how the story writer has jumped from an investigation of a rape case to a matter involving the shape, and size of a breast and concludes that Kuhu (actor’s breast) was responsible for the rape.
In the end, the judge delivers an entire monologue on victim-blaming leading to a discussion on the concept of breast tax. No judge in the world will go on lecturing the public about social ethics and simply just consider the defence’s argument to be flawed and point out the logical fallacies in their case and only then deliver his/her judgement. The voice-over used for the judge in the film exhibits the mismatch of the tone and the pitch.
Interestingly, this is not the first time a movie or a show has wrongfully depicted a courtroom situation. An exception was the 2019 Bollywood movie Section 375. It was based on a similar storyline.
However, this movie tries to change the viewers’ perception of how a legal battle is fought inside a court. The material facts and evidence are presented, and it looks as if both the parties are trying to rely on that rather than the emotional aspect of the entire situation. In addition, when the defence lawyer tries to pull off a silly stunt of faking evidence, which does not exist so that the victim would instantly panic and reveal an essential piece of information, the court holds him to be liable for contempt of court as such an act is against the basic courtroom etiquette.
Throughout the film, the characters harp on one sentence. ‘We are in the business of law and not justice’, referring to the role of lawyers in the legal system. Films are considered a means of individual and social transformation. Drustikona seems to have lost track at the end while exploring the cause of rape and murder.
