Set in Meghwalo Dhani, a village off Jodhpur in India, 'Durga' reveals a personal story of a young teenage girl who is arranged to marry a man she has never met.
Despite her lack
of consent, she follows through the arrangement, at tender age of 14, to avoid
dishonouring her family. Later in the film, her father also finds difficulty to
let his daughter that he doted the most go to a man he regrettably promises.
The most
striking thing about the film is that it feels like it has been done for.
Having inspired by a similar child bride feature on National Geographic, the
film does not delve deeper into unchartered territories making it appear as
mediocre and less than edgy. Due to short duration of filming and access,
perhaps, that there was little means to expand the angle and message fully.
Visually, the
film's cinematography shows off the beautiful landscape of setting and its
crafty play with lights sparks the contrast on dark realities of young and
helpless brides who are trapped by celebrated
traditions. 'Durga' makes a good attempt and first step
in bringing such pertinent awareness closer to our shore.
Durga - Trailer from faithjuliana on Vimeo.
This film was also screened as part of the 6th Singapore Indie Doc Fest.
Review by Haswani
Haswani is both a ninja and crazy bunny on the loose. She has fallen hopelessly in love with filmmaking on the last semester in Uni and tells herself that she needs to marry a Hollywood actor (read: Ryan Gosling) to finance her filmmaking studies in Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. If further studies doesn't work out, she will focus on perfecting her lethal karate chops and deadly weapon-throwing moves.