Spoilers ahead
Women have been saying it for a long time. Statistics have also proved it. And yet, the disbelief remains constant when a survivor reveals that she has faced sexual violence from a person known to her.
A short film – Devi – drives home this very point and much more in just 13 minutes. With an ensemble cast including Shruti Haasan, Kajol, Neha Dhupia and many others, the story begins with all the women sitting in the living room. It’s clear that the women are a motley group – one is studying, another woman in a burkha is waxing her leg, a woman in a pantsuit is sitting on a chair next to another woman in party clothes, taking a shot from a bottle of alcohol, while three Marathi women sit in sarees chattering away, and another enters with incense sticks for the deity. The television is on, in black and white, while a mute girl tries to change the channel to play the news.
The atmosphere in the room shifts, and we are given the impression that they are waiting for the arrival of another person. The already overcrowded home will have another inmate – meaning someone else may have to go out to create more room.
As they quarrel over who is worthy of staying, it becomes clear that the women, who may otherwise not have mingled, have one painful thing in common – they are victims of rape. In the course of the conversation, we learn who the perpetrators were – husband, brother, father… local goons… for some, the men were over the age of 50. As these things are revealed, they hold up a mirror to the assumptions society throws at survivors – a family member cannot be a rapist; a man over a certain age cannot inflict sexual violence. In contrast, 94% of survivors know their perpetrators as per the latest crime data in India.
As the story unfolds, we realise that this room, and these women are not in the real world. The women start talking about the weapon that their perpetrators used to kill them – a rock, a knife, a beer bottle. In another poignant scene, one of the inmates says that it wasn’t a weapon, but the trauma that killed her. An argument ensues on how her suffering was less compared to others and so she should leave the house. It serves as a painful reminder of how sexual violence survivors and their trauma are measured and compared -- much like how many gangrapes in India have come to be compared to Nirbhaya, when all of them are as wrong and painful for the survivors regardless of the degree of violence. The ending is a moving one, a strong message against victim blaming, and of solidarity among women survivors.
The best part about Devi is its writing. The dynamics and the way the story unfolds are quite effortless – it isn’t preachy, it’s not explicit or graphic for such a heavy topic. It brings out the routine nature of violence against women, while also subtly yet powerfully highlighting the battles they fight every day to navigate a deeply patriarchal society. And the biggest irony of the film of course, is in the title – Devi, which translates to goddess – emphasising that a country that worships many female deities also reports around 90 rapes every day.
While the 13-minute film written and directed by Priyanka Banerjee has earned a lot of praise for packing a powerful punch in just a few minutes, there is an allegation of plagiarism against it as well. According to The Quint, a student film by the name of Four was made in 2018, and had a similar concept – some women who have been raped and murdered meet in the afterlife. The ending of the two is also similar.
The director of the student film, Abhishek Rai, has written a Facebook post stating that their concept was copied in Devi. “Ofcourse our film was a student film, with very little production design, bad audio and stuff, but still it's a child of our own imagination and it's ruthless how anyone can just pick up a piece of thought and claim it to be theirs,” he said in his Facebook post. He added that while he had not contacted LargeShortFilms which produced Devi or the filmmaker on the matter, he may take action against them.