True Beauty in ‘A Day in Eden’

This moment, of course, is true beauty. They are vulnerable with one another, and that erases the walls that we constantly build up between generations, religions, and genders.

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Written by Leigh Kolb.


“What is beauty?”
“I have a thousand brilliant lies for the question.”

Assal Ghawami’s short film, A Day in Eden, quietly reflects upon the question of beauty. The first images we see in the film are in a nursing home–an elderly man in a wheelchair, a nurse roughly scrubbing a resident. The workers seem harsh, and the residents seem disconnected. All this unfolds as the narrator asks, “What is beauty?”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6gDCer30wc”]

A volunteer cellist, Fereshde (Briana Marin), who is unmistakably conventionally beautiful, is led into the room of Mr. Hammacher (Stewart Steinberg). The nurse tells Fereshde that he has no friends or family. Fereshde, in her headscarf, sits and takes out her cello to play for him. There is a crucifix hanging above his bed. The contrast of youth and beauty and age and decay is clear in every shot. But the concept of “beauty” is much deeper than the skin.

A Day in Eden: the contrast of the headscarf and crucifix
A Day in Eden: the contrast of the headscarf and crucifix

 

Mr. Hammacher is angry and combative, but finds himself in an incredibly vulnerable position (even more so than before) when he soils himself. “Please don’t tell,” he says to Fereshde. “I just want to go home.” They embrace, and she gently, with great care and compassion, changes his pants. “It’s OK,” she says.

This moment, of course, is true beauty. They are vulnerable with one another, and that erases the walls that we constantly build up between generations, religions, and genders.

While she was making the film, Ghawami wrote about her work advocating for the Elder Justice Act (which became law in 2010). She said,

“To help pass this piece of legislation I produced and edited more than 50 interviews with victims of elderly abuse that were presented to Congress in 2010. I hope that A Day in Eden will continue to shed light on the issue of elder abuse and inspire more people to fight for the rights of our elders.”

On its surface, A Day in Eden is not overtly an activist film. The residents seem neglected and the workers seem cold, and we need to question how normal that seems. The deep humanity with which Fereshde treats Mr. Hammacher transforms him. Ghawami’s message is clear, then: only through compassionate humanity can we heal and be healed.

A Day in Eden is beautiful not only in its message, but also in its cinematography, editing, soundtrack, and acting. Beauty can be defined in a thousand different subjective ways. But A Day in Eden’s beauty lies in its truth.

Visit http://www.assalghawami.com/ for the director’s reel and upcoming screenings.

 


See also at Bitch FlicksThe Yellow Room and the Timeless Locking Up of Women’s Experiences


Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘The World Before Her’: Between Liberalization and Fundamentalism–India’s Two Faces

Pahuja sees the film as going beyond the issues of women’s rights; according to her, the film is about India, and what’s happening there, and the fear about the future as the culture of the country goes through extreme changes. She adds that, through the film, she would like to showcase the kind of “hatred being taught in the camps in the guise of patriotism.”

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This guest post by Asma Sayed previously appeared at AwaaZ Magazine and appears here as part of our theme week on Asian Womanhood in Pop Culture. Cross-posted with permission.


“I hate [Mahatma] Gandhi; frankly speaking, I hate Gandhi,” declares Prachi, a 24-year-old young woman. “I am here to win [the Miss India title], and that’s my only goal,” says Ruhi, a 19-year-old. Indo- Canadian director Nisha Pahuja’s documentary film The World Before Her captures the worlds of these two young women representing many other women in contemporary India. The World Before Her is a thought-provoking, disturbing, and yet, compelling documentary that brings together the seemingly opposite worlds of Hindu nationalist ideologies and beauty pageants. Prachi and Ruhi denote dualistic faces of a country undergoing swift change. The documentary juxtaposes two female-dominated Indian communities: one is centered around the biannual camps organized by Durga Vahini, women’s wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindu nationalist organization, and the other is the month-long preparatory training event leading up to the live broadcast of the Miss India beauty pageant.

The film was completed in 2012 and has been on the international film festival circuit in the interim, and won many awards, but its theatrical release in India in June 2014 coincides in ironic ways with the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2014. Modi’s political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is known to be closely affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist group that operates on the principles of Hindutva. VHP, founded in 1964, is closely aligned with the RSS and functions under the umbrella of Sangh Parivar, a group of organizations dedicated to Hindu nationalist movement. In short, these are different groups that share similar ideologies and have strong ties to the current ruling party in India. Prime Minister Modi is famously known to have been an active member of the RSS since the age of 8.

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Male training camps, called shakhas, organized by the youth wing of VHP/RSS, called Bajrang Dal, have existed for decades and have branches in India and abroad, and their activities have been largely known. By contrast, very little information has circulated about the female wing—Durga Vahini (Carrier of Durga)—which is a comparatively newer innovation with roots going back to 1991. Pahuja’s direction exposes this largely unknown female world that prepares women for traditional Hindu social roles as wives and mothers, but also for militia-style combat in defense of the Hindu nation, if necessary. Pahuja is the first filmmaker to have gained access to these exclusive camps organized by the Durga Vahini group. Her film is a courageous attempt to present the realities of extremist ideologies taught in the camps, and of linking them to the various events that have troubled India in the last decade and a half: the film shows footage of the Malegaon bombings, the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, and VHP/RSS members consistently acting as morality police by violently ransacking bars to ensure girls and women do not drink, dance, and mingle with the opposite sex.

Girls attending the Durga Vahini camps are between the ages of 12 and 25. They follow a regimented training schedule that includes martial arts, physical fitness training, and lectures that remind them of their Hindu identity. They are instructed about the virtue of fighting against Muslims, Christians, and Westernization, all presented as the antithesis of Hindu nationalist ideals. The film captures a lecture where girls and young women are being taught that “Muslims and Christians are attacking our [Hindu] culture,” and that the people in caps and beards look like demons similar to those described in the ancient Hindu scriptures. They are told that it is not Gandhi’s non-violence that brought independence to India, but the sacrifice of thousands of Hindu martyrs.

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Prachi, one of the strongest Durga Vahini female members, who with several years of experience in the camp, also acts as a leader to the next generation of campers, speaks out against beauty pageants, the second subject of the film, which, to her, represent Western decadence. Having herself attended more than 40 camps, Prachi has been inculcated into accepting the values that the camp organizers promote. Girls in the camp chant simultaneously “dudh mango kheer denge; Kashmir mango chir denge” – “if you ask for milk, we will give you rice pudding; if you ask for Kashmir, we will slit your throat,” referring to India’s long conflict with Pakistan over the Kashmir valley region. When a camper is asked if she has any Muslim friends, she replies, “I am very proud to say that I have no Muslim friends.” Prachi too declares that she is willing to build a bomb and blast it “if conditions call for it.”

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On the other hand, Prachi’s father is eager to marry her off against her wish. He has no qualms admitting that he hits her, if necessary, to ensure that she obeys. He proudly mentions that when Prachi was a child he burned her leg with a hot iron rod. Prachi does not object; she believes it is his right as a parent. In a country where 750,000 girl fetuses are aborted every year and the statistics for female infanticide remain undocumented, Prachi is happy that her father let her live. She points out that “many traditional families kill a girl child. He let me live; that’s the best part,” she says.

Then again, in Mumbai, Pahuja cinematographically captures the daily activities of 20 young Miss India hopefuls. Their focus is dramatically different: filled with regimen–Botox injections, skin whitening treatments, catwalks, and diction training. This female world is one focused on glamour, on pleasing the male-dominated jury, and on preparing for the big break that will come with the title of Miss India. Many of the pageant’s participants aim for Bollywood screen-careers. In fact, many former winners have gone on to become famous Bollywood stars: Aishwarya Rai, Shusmita Sen, Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta, among others. However, the young women who perceive the Miss India pageant as a path to freedom, fame and equality, largely fail to note the irony of the situation as they are made to walk in front of juries in bikinis, or with their upper bodies covered under white sacks so that the jury members may assess the “beauty” of their legs: sexual objectification and conformity to traditional beauty paradigms is not the equivalent of personal freedom. The few who are aware, at all, of the problematic of their current situation, brush it off, considering it a small price to pay to achieve the stardom that awaits them. And, of course, that stardom will come at a cost, as well.

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Pahuja’s camera follows Ruhi, one of the contestants from a lower-middle class family in a small town. Ruhi’s parents support her dream, and are keen to see her win the title. In many ways, Ruhi represents the dreams of a young generation of women in India. Pahuja also interviews Pooja Chopra, a former Miss India. Raised by a single mother, Chopra participated in the pageant in an attempt to prove herself to her father, who had wanted her mother to either kill her (after she was born) or give her up for adoption, as he did not want a girl child. Thus, the documentary beautifully mirrors the lives of different women in many ways, all of whom in one way or another, are attempting to prove their worth and their right to live, whether it is in taking up arms in defense of Hindu nationalism or succumbing to traditional ideals of worth equated with female beauty.

While these young girls and women are all attempting to empower themselves, their attempts are reflective of the inherently flawed options available to them. There is an innate sadness in these women’s attempts at either becoming part of a right wing fundamentalist group or using their bodies to showcase their worth. Neither of these efforts contribute to improving women’s condition and advancing women’s rights in patriarchal India, now troubled by a variety of issues including increasing gender tensions in a global world where women are, to greater and lesser degrees, aware that change is possible, if not quite within reach. However, the recent rise in gang rapes is a testament to the fact that India has a very long way to go before majority of women in India will be anywhere closer to gaining equal rights.

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With Modi coming to power, it becomes increasingly important to be aware of the influence of groups such as VHP and RSS, and how they will sway the political rhetoric as well as women’s rights in India. In a recent interview with filmmaker Shazia Javed, Pahuja, speaking of the content of her film, said that “with the new government, people really need to know that these things exist . . . Now that the BJP and Modi are in power, we have no idea what is going to happen. But to me, it feels that these groups feel a certain kind of validation. They feel emboldened; there is a confidence now. So I think that the film reminds us that we can’t close our eyes. It reminds us that there is a potential for these movements to grow and that is a threat.” Pahuja sees the film as going beyond the issues of women’s rights; according to her, the film is about India, and what’s happening there, and the fear about the future as the culture of the country goes through extreme changes. She adds that, through the film, she would like to showcase the kind of “hatred being taught in the camps in the guise of patriotism.” Starting in October 2014, Pahuja has done grassroots screening of the film with women’s rights and human rights activists, and those who work in the area of communal harmony. The World Before Her, well researched and edited, is a welcome addition to social issue films.

 


Dr. Asma Sayed teaches English, Communication Studies, and Women’s Studies in Canadian universities. She has published three books as well as several refereed articles and book chapters, on such topics as diaspora literature, Canadian comparative literature, Indian cinema, and women’s representation in cinema. She writes a film column for AwaaZ: Voices, a periodical in Kenya.

In ‘Women, War & Peace’s ‘I Came to Testify’ Brave Bosnian Women Speak Out About Surviving Rape as a Weapon of War

 

This is a guest post from Megan Kearns. It originally appeared at The Opinioness of the World.

 

When we discuss war and security, we don’t often explore its ramifications on women. Rape and sexual assault are common threats women face globally. But of all the artillery and tactics soldiers use, we rarely think of rape as a weapon of war. And yet too often, it is.

 

On Tuesday night, I watched I Came to Testify, the first in the 5-part documentary series, Women, War and Peace, on PBS showcasing women’s role in war and its impact on women. Produced and written by Pamela Hogan, one of the series’ executive producers, I Came to Testify highlights the courageous women who testified about the rape camps during the Bosnian genocide.

 

The powerful film examines women’s horrific experiences in the town of Foca in Bosnia (formerly Yugoslavia), a site of one of the rape camps. Before the Bosnian War, journalist Refic Hodzic said that brotherhood and unity was the “ideology” in Yugoslavia; “no one cared who was Croat, who was Serb, who was Muslim.” But overnight, things changed. Many Serbs pulled their children out of school and fled town. The Bosnian Muslims were eventually dehumanized by Serbian soldiers, pitting neighbor against neighbor.

 

In Foca, soldiers rounded up the Bosnian men, women and children. Men “were beaten, starved and executed in concentration camps” while the women “were locked in hotels, schools, private homes & makeshift prisons around the city.” After they were gathered, the rapes began. Soldiers threatened women; to cut off their breasts, slit their throats and kill their daughters. Hundreds of women and girls were held captive in rape camps.

 

Established by the United Nations Security Council in 1993, the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands was the first tribunal established in Europe since Nuremberg and the first ever convened during a war. 16 women agreed to travel to The Hague to share their nightmarish ordeal. As narrator Matt Damon (who wanted to be a part of the documentary because of his 4 daughters) said:

“Their testimonies would embody the experience of hundreds of women held captive in Foca.”

One of the witnesses, called Witness 99 to protect her anonymity, recounted how on the day they were rounded up, she was raped in front of her in-laws and then they were murdered in front of her. Witness 99 escaped to a refugee camp where the horror of rape continued. Another witness said she “cried and pleaded” for the soldiers to let her go “but they just laughed.” Another witness testified that one of the soldiers told another, “You have to learn how to rape Muslim women like we are doing.” The women said fear “paralyzed” them.

 

In Foca, half the residents, 20,000 Muslims were just gone. All 14 mosques were destroyed. Evidence in Foca showed that a campaign could be built to prove that a systematic, organized campaign of rape had been “used as an instrument of terror.” While the UN estimated 20,000 women raped in Bosnia, others say it was more like 50,000.

 

Peggy Kuo served as a trial attorney with the tribunal. She declared that “rape has always been an undercurrent of war.” When talking about war, the term “rape and pillage” frequently arises. But we don’t really think about what the words mean. Kuo said the soldiers raped the women, objectifying them and attempting “to strip them of their identity.” Journalist Hodzic explained:

“Rape was used not only for the immediate impact on women but for the long-term destruction on the soul of the community.”

Witness 99 asserted:

“Rape is the worst form of humiliation for any woman. But that was the goal: to kill a woman’s dignity.”

The women heroically faced their fears to share their stories. They were astutely deemed heroes by those interviewed in the film. As Kuo articulated:

“…The people who came and testified were able to maintain their dignity and they didn’t let the perpetrators take their humanity away from them. So yes in one sense they were victims. But in another sense, they were the strong ones. They survived.”

While rape had been charged as a crime before, it usually falls under the umbrella of hate crimes. With this groundbreaking tribunal, for the first time rape was charged as “a crime against humanity.” The case wouldn’t prevent all rapes. But Kuo said that even though they couldn’t prosecute every rape, it was a significant statement to acknowledge what happens to women during war. The case “transformed the definition of wartime slavery,” laying the “foundation of trials involving violence against women in international courts.”

 

War leaves devastation in its wake. Yet historically, when we talk about war, we talk about it in terms of soldiers and casualties; too often from a male perspective, forgetting that it equally destroys women’s lives. Kuo explained:

“Looking at pictures of Nuremberg, it’s mostly men…women aren’t given a place at the table, even as a witness…”

And that still holds true today. We need to reframe security issues from a gendered lens.

 

Genocide frighteningly still occurs; people systematically killed because of their ethnicity, religion or the color of their skin. As tragically seen in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, soldiers utilize rape as a weapon of war again and again. Rape and sexual assault occur beyond conflicts and don’t only threaten women as men face rape in wartime too. It’s an epidemic we must combat.

 

Bravery bolstered the 16 Bosnian women to come forward, speaking out against the unspeakable atrocities they survived. As Witness 99 so eloquently said:

“War criminals wouldn’t be known & there would be no justice if witnesses didn’t testify…I was glad to be able to say what happened to me and to say who had done this to me & my people. I felt like I had fulfilled my duty. I came to look him in the face. I came to testify.”

We live in a rape culture that continually silences women’s narratives. The survivors’ horrific experiences shock and haunt. If we ever hope to change things and obtain justice and peace, I Came to Testify reminds us that women’s voices must be heard.

 

Watch the full episode of I Came to Testify online or on PBS.

 

Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

Megan contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, The Kids Are All Right (for our 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for our 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), Game of Thrones and The Killing (for our Emmy Week 2011), as well as a piece for Mad Men Week called, “Is Mad Men the Most Feminist Show on TV?” She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor.