When India announced its official Oscar film entry would be Laapataa Ladies, the accompanying citation was controversial. “Indian women are a strange mixture of submission and dominance,” the note penned by the Film Federation of India (FFI) began rather condescendingly, before praising Kiran Rao’s film for its portrayal of two opposite women who must muster courage to believe in themselves when they are accidentally swapped on a train after their respective weddings. Phool (Nitanshi Goel) is timid and lacks street smarts before her independence briefly blossoms, while headstrong Jaya (Pratibha Ranta) uses the opportunity to run away from an abusive situation and finally follow her dreams of becoming an organic farmer.
Despite its clunky wording, the Film Federation of India’s statement wasn’t entirely wrong: Rao’s film, and two other standouts from 2024, All We Imagine as Light and Girls Will be Girls, do speak to the submission and dominance of Indian women—and perhaps women everywhere. To me, dominance in this context doesn’t necessarily mean being under someone else’s influence, but rather the internal drive and motivation to live life on one’s own terms, no matter the cost. But what FFI missed is the reason for this dichotomy.
Both ends of the spectrum are in conversation with the patriarchal setting where Laapataa Ladies the film takes place. The rural North Indian villages that provide the backdrop for the movie is a society in which women are subjugated, as evidenced by the dowry demands, the over-reliance on male figures in the community, and the ghoonghat bridal veil that literally shields their identity and leads to the bride switch in the first place.
And the patriarchy isn’t only perpetuated by men—a flashback to Jaya’s pre-wedded life shows her mother’s staunch opposition to her education and freedom, quite literally forcing her to marry a man who is suspected of killing his first wife. Once she arrives in Phool’s husband’s village, Jaya’s motives are constantly questioned, her whereabouts are monitored, and she is admonished for daring to speak her real husband’s name out loud. Deeply entrenched patriarchal values that relegate women to a lower status in society expect women to act like Phool and often look down upon those that have agency like Jaya. While Rao’s film is a feminist tale of perseverance at heart, the circumstances for the characters’ “strange mixture” cannot be ignored.
Laapataa Ladies is not the only independently produced Indian film last year that explored the versatility of women who are often held back by the guardrails of a patriarchal society. Payal Kapadia’s critically acclaimed debut All We Imagine as Light—which will not compete in the Best International Feature category at the Academy Awards despite receiving recognition at the Cannes Film Festival, Gotham Awards, Golden Globes, and more—depicts a tender friendship between two Malayalee nurses, each of whom are struggling romantically due to familial expectations. Prabha’s (Kani Kusruti) marriage was arranged to a man who left for Germany and never called or returned, while Anu (Divya Prabha) avoids her family’s attempts to set her up because she’s secretly dating a Muslim man, whom her parents would never accept.
Set in modern day Mumbai, Kapadia paints a gorgeous portrait of yearning through Prabha and Anu’s eyes. Prabha, the slightly older maternal figure, desires a life with her absent husband, even turning down the advances of a nice doctor whom she spends time with occasionally. She feels stuck—neither married nor single, caged by the agreement she was forced into and the promises that weren’t upheld—and doesn’t give herself permission to remove the shackles until the final moments of the film.
Anu, on the other hand, doesn’t really care about what she’s “supposed” to do. She dodges her family’s calls and ignores the biodatas (a.k.a. parent-ordained dating profiles) they send of prospective husbands because she’s fallen in love and is unbothered by the potential consequences. In many ways, she’s freer than Prabha, if only because she’s running from society’s expectations.
Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha in All We Imagine as Light.
Like Phool and Jaya, Prabha and Anu represent a dichotomy of the female experience under a male-led system. Prabha’s conservatism keeps her in a sham marriage she was forced into, but she’s afraid to free herself from it because that would damage her reputation much more than her estranged husband’s (even though he was the one who essentially abandoned her). Conversely, Anu fears falling into a situation like Prabha’s, instead seeking love and avoiding those that aim to push her into submission via an arranged marriage.
While the pairs of women in Laapataa Ladies and All We Imagine as Light sit firmly on either end of the scale, Shuchi Talati’s Girls Will Be Girls centers on a strained mother/daughter duo in which both characters embody rebellion and obedience. Mira (Preeti Panigrahi) is a model student and the newly-minted head prefect at her boarding school. She begins an innocent flirtation with the new kid in class Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron), which escalates over the course of the year, forcing Mira to weigh the rules she’s always followed (and enforced) with her budding sexual desires. The latter ultimately wins.
Complicating all of this is her mother Anila (Kani Kusruti in another excellent performance) who has arrived in town to keep an eye on her daughter during final exams. She slowly inserts herself between Mira and Sri, often banishing Mira to her room while she flirtatiously makes Sri a cup of chai or naps next to him in bed. It’s clear Anila is unhappy in her marriage (another depiction of a servile arranged union) and her conversations with Sri enliven her, even if they push Mira away. Both Anila and Mira are restrained by the roles they play in society, but feel emboldened to seek out what they desire, no matter the consequence.
Preeti Panigrahi and Kani Kusruti in Girls Will Be Girls.
The core of Laapataa Ladies, All We Imagine as Light, and Girls Will be Girls are the versatility and resilience of women, and the characters represent the spectrum of patriarchal expectations of women: obedient and careful on the desired end, and rebellious and headstrong on the reviled other.
But resilience appears in many forms. Phool’s journey is no less life-changing than Jaya’s; Anu’s choices aren’t inherently more inspiring than Prabha’s; and Mira’s coming of age isn’t more important than Anila’s. As long as patriarchy rules, there will always be some submission and dominance in women as we push and pull against what is expected and accepted. Female athletes, for example, like Olympic archer Deepika Kumari, have achieved great feats (like representing her country on the national stage), but her success is often criticized or downplayed merely because she is a woman.
But if there’s one thing to learn from Indian independent cinema this year, it’s that feminism can appear in even the smallest of ways. Whether you connect with Phool’s subtle shift in self-worth, Anu’s outward pursuit of what she wants, or Mira’s desire to have it both ways, there is always a lane for standing up for yourself—even if the patriarchy tries to tell you otherwise.