Movie Review-Pink

When people question me about the best year for gaming, I proudly say 2009. Uncharted 2(This game alone is enough to make any year the best. Just saying), Infamous, Assassins Creed 2, Killzone 2, Modern Warfare 2, Borderlands, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Dragon Age: Origins, Red Faction: Guerrilla to name just a few. Now if people were to ask me the best year for Bollywood, I can without hesitance say 2016. Starting the year off with Neerja and Airlift, then giving some smooth ides in with Nil Battey Sanata, Rustam, Kapoor and Sons, Happy Bhaag Jaayegi and the incredibly energetic and moving(and my favourite movie of the year) Udta Punjab and now starting off the end of the year with Pink. In between, we’ve had noble attempts at different styles of films, such as Madaari and Waiting. Bollywooooood!!! You have outdone yourself this year.
Pink starts off with dialogues over the starting credits about a normal dinner/drinks party somewhere, between a group of boys and girls. The girls insist that they must go and one of the guy says, “How about one last drink for the road?” The first scene of the movie shows the three girls in the cab going home. Looking at them, you can figure out something traumatic has happened to them. The very next image is of a guy being taken to a hospital, with one man profusely bleeding from right above the left eye, obviously hit by something. Now we know something terrible happened here.
For anybody who has even had a whiff of this movie, knows what the story is. I’ll let it out just a little. The three girls, were out with three guys. The guys decided that since the girls were with them in a hotel in Surajkund (A location in Haryana), they decided they would inappropriately touch them and have sex with them. The girls resisted, with one of the girls, Meenal (Taapsee Pannu), ramming a glass bottle into the forehead (right above the left eye) of Ranveer (Angad Bedi), the son of a powerful Delhi politician. The girls, traumatised, two of the three having been molested, return home, have an awkward day and then try to forget about it.
Anybody who knows the swine that lives in Delhi in the houses of politicians knows this was not the end. The three girls, Meenal, Falak (Kirti Kulhari) and Andrea (Andrea Tariang) are then proceeded to be threatened over phone calls by the goons. Their landlord is threatened, over calls and in person to evict the girls. Eventually, they call the police on their house and have the whole neighbourhood turn against them. They have Meenal arrested for a myriad of offenses, and have the three girls blamed for being prostitutes, who went with the boys to extort money; with Meenal hitting Ranveer in the head because he refused to give them money.
Eventually comes in Deepak Sehgal (Amitabh Bachchan), a manic depressed lawyer who fights Meenal case in court.
Pink is a powerfully acted out movie. All the performances, from the greatest( oh come on he is the best) Amitabh Bachchan to the three girls, Taapsee Pannu, Kriti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang, and even the boys, Angad Bedi et al are memorable. You smile at Amitabh Bachchan’s fucking over all the liars and assholes of the society. The girls whom you feel sympathy for and want them to get justice. And the boys whom you so desperately want to not only see behind bars, but also done something much worse for their offense.
Pink has so many beautiful themes it tackles about women. Such as how “NO” means there is no need for “BUT”. How people always think girls living alone in a house who bring home friends are prostitutes. One of the more central themes, how “NO” means “NO”. How “NO” in itself is a complete sentence and once a woman says “NO”, be it any woman, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a girlfriend, a sex worker, “NO” means “NO”. Not “GO ON, I FUCKING LOVE IT AND IN A GIRL’S NO IS A YES HIDDEN SOMEWHERE THAT WILL COME OUT WHEN YOU RAPE HER ENOUGH”. How “NO” means fucking “NO”, and if you don’t adhere to that, you are a rapist and a sexual predator. PERIOD.
Another theme this movie tackles, which was the one to hit me the most personally, is the society. The society very easily says the girls deserved it, how they are prostitutes and everybody knew three girls living together had to be. How just because they were modern or drank or wore small clothes or hung out with boys, they were prostitutes.
Even worse, after details of the case go out, about the three women molested, the society still says, “No no. The woman were prostitutes and they are lying.” Nobody wants to believe that girls are right. Then insensitively telling the girls that it’s okay, it will be over soon. As though rape is a disease that will go away with a wash out or two in some time. Like, “Rape is bad viral. Have a few medicines, take a few baths and Voila! It’ll be gone off your body.” Do people even realise how brutal rape is?
And people just as easily leave the sides of these girls. Their friends, family, lovers break all connection with them because they don’t want their children impacted negatively or because people will judge them for having such daughters. What hurts me most is the insensitiveness of women to the plight of other women. A woman SHO, a bastardising woman, whom you feel happy has been humiliated in open court, files an incorrect complaint against Meenal on the pressure of politicians. And then she blatantly goes along with it, never for once thinking the plight of the women. I could be entirely wrong with my point here, but I would like to say one thing, even though it may seem highly controversial.
When men do something wrong, all men stand with them in an effort to conceal it. But if it is women who are molested, and it was aided or triggered by other women, what chance do they fucking have?
And I’m not just talking about here, but the number of rapes and molestations and beat ups that take place on insistence of the mothers of the boys over dowry in cities or improper behaviour or the honor killings various women orchestrate.
Talking about this always makes me a bit crazy. Simple because, it is harmful and hurtful and disgusting, whatever goes on. The blatant disregard for humanity, the lopsided feudal moral system, the manipulation of the judicial system, and most of all the harassment of the molested girls by the lawyers against them.
If you haven’t seen Pink, do yourself a favour and watch it ASAP

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My two cents on Pink. One of movies with a universal message about consent and the impact rape has on the women affected, such as being isolated, constantly harassed in court in front of everyone and the blatant acquisitions over their character. Pink is a movie which will leave you with a strong emotion in your gut, especially after the end credits narrative by Amitabh Bachchan himself!