Now Reading: Marathi film on bride-viewing wins five Filmfare critics awards
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Marathi film on bride-viewing wins five Filmfare critics awards
Marathi debut film Sthal has won five Critics Jury awards at the Filmfare Awards in the Marathi section. The film is a direct critique of the bride-viewing practice common in arranged marriages,…
Marathi debut film Sthal has won five Critics Jury awards at the Filmfare Awards in the Marathi section. The film is a direct critique of the bride-viewing practice common in arranged marriages, where a groom and his family visit a prospective bride's home to assess her. The film presents this custom as a patriarchal transaction disguised as a compatibility check, often tied to dowry negotiations.
Director Jayant Digambar Somalkar's film references representations of the same practice in earlier Indian cinema by Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak. Bride-viewing, known as pennukanal in Kerala and chehra dekhna in some regions, has been critiqued for its inherent power imbalance. The storyline examines the humiliation women face during these encounters, from being asked to sing or walk to undergoing financial scrutiny by the visitors.
Indian Opinion Analysis
Bride-viewing, known regionally as pennukanal in Kerala or chehra dekhna in Hindi, remains a routine prelude to arranged marriages across India though its intensity varies by community and class. The custom has no formal legal standing, but the Supreme Court in its 2017 judgment in the case of Shafin Jahan v. Asokan K. M. held that the choice of a marriage partner is a fundamental right under Article 21, implicitly placing individual consent above family vetting rituals. The film association's recognition of this critique suggests a growing cultural pushback. The real measure of change will be whether the conversation moves beyond cinema into fewer families asking brides to walk or write on cue, something no law governs and only social pressure can alter.
Source: english.mathrubhumi.com
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
