2006’s Chinthamani Kolacase is a good example, in which a criminal defence attorney spends his spare time gruesomely killing the very rapists and killers he defends in court. Hence this justice is meted out even if the survivor is dead. The audience gets to see macho justice meted out for ruining family (male) honour, which is embodied by the raped woman. The usual trope in the case of rape is for the (male) protagonist to avenge the act.
Though the couple separate painfully so that the audience sees that there is no happy ending to this relationship, the rape scene and the admonition by the man to the woman he raped is the crux of the film. Since Anitha does not reply, the message conveyed is that she somewhat wanted the act. The rape is explained away as happening because Anitha was wearing something revealing while sheltering at Chandradas’ house during a storm.Īfterwards, he asks her why she did not resist him enough. A flashback shows his relationship with his daughter’s mother Anitha, whom he married as a warped act of justice after raping. In it, a celebrated poet named Chandradas finds his daughter who had been kept from him by her mother. The very first film of any language in which this writer remembers seeing a rape scene was 1993’s Padheyam with Mammootty in the lead role. This article focuses on Malaylam cinema since it is less examined in English and since the author is Keralite). Hindi and Tamil films from the same periods are rife with the same issues. Malayalam films over time, particularly the 80s and 90s, have had an effect of reinforcing patriarchy and using rape scenes to tantalise rather than underscoring the wrongness of the act (by no means is Malayalam film alone in South Asia in doing this. Playing with systems of power, writers and directors use rape scenes to underline the villainy of the antagonist, or bring sympathy for the protagonist – the pivotal scene from the French film Irreversible stands as an example of the former, while the prison rape scene from American History X is an instance of the latter.ĭue to the sheer power that these scenes have, they can help shape archetypes such as the redeemed sinner or the fallen saint.
Rape in films is a dangerous plot device. It comes with a (much smaller in perspective) spoiler warning as well. This article comes with a trigger warning in that it discusses rape-related film scenes.
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