7 Khoon Maaf (2011) (7 Murders Forgiven)
Vishal Bhardwaj
Hindi
So we have two high-profile filmmakers releasing two remarkably symmetric films this weekend which wear their inspirations on their sleeves. Both these similarly structured films give us serial killers traumatized by childhood events. But, while Menon’s movie is like gazing into a fish bowl, Bhardwaj’s is akin to peeping through the door lens. It is not the protagonist, Susanna (who befittingly misses an emotional arc, played by Priyanka Chopra) but the world around her that is distorted in 7 Khoon Maaf. Right from the beginning, we are told, she is in search of father figures (through her six husbands) to replace her deceased biological father (which, of course, culminates with her marriage to the Son, her ordinance, which wittily distorts her line about drinking her husband’s blood). Along the way, she seems to see herself as a feminist twist on Christ (which goes well with Bhardwaj’s not-so-singular brand of militant feminism) who suffers for the sake of those who follow. She seeks forgiveness for her seven sins, her seventh sin being exactly this misinterpretation of Christ’s mission, to militarize Jesus, to bring him to earth, to replace forgiveness with retribution, to ‘kill’ him. However, where Bhardwaj’s film trumps Menon’s is that, although it lends itself to easy Lacanian reading like Naaygal, 7 Khoon never attempts to reduce characters to psychoanalytical toolboxes. Spanning several decades (Bhardwaj clumsily attempts to contextualize the narrative, using political events while, given the themes, he should have done precisely the opposite: collapse history and let anachronism reign), 7 Khoon hops across film subgenres of the west (costume drama, period film, concert picture etc.) all the while having a very ‘Indian’ heart (The commentary on Indian patriarchy almost swaps targets in the Russian segment), as if remarking upon Bollywood’s skin deep aping of Hollywood cinema. This masking of ‘Indian-ness’ by ‘European-ness’ and of (regressive) actualities by (progressive) surfaces and of the present seemingly repeating itself to eternity is, ultimately, is what 7 Khoon deals with. And it deals with pretty well, even if one gets the feeling that a rewrite would have done more good.
(Image Courtesy: Fun Cracker)
February 21, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Great analysis. I had been wondering about her seventh sin all this while. I had penned it down to getting her aunt killed in the fire she started to kill herself. But your reasoning seems more logical :)
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February 21, 2011 at 6:18 pm
Thanks Ira,
I’d say that it was her very first sin even: the thought that she could play God, the self-righteousness of taking responsibilities of heaven when she could have wallowed in the physicality of earth. She’s like a typical Scorsese hero – may be even a Mira Nair character – caught between duties of heaven and realities of the earth. The thrust for her is in two opposite directions: one towards the outside and one within; one towards the world she lives in/for and one towards herself. Like the spinning Sufis whose spirituality is as much a physical bliss. She’s probably closer to Magdalene than Christ I guess.
But then, I digress.
Thanks and Cheers!
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