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FILM COMMENT
September/October 2002
PERFECT PITCH
MAITHILI RAO PAYS TRIBUTE TO BRILLIANT INDIAN ACTRESS AND FEMINIST ICON
SHABANA AZMI
by Maithili Rao
above: Fire
Azmiās forte is to reinterpret the modern womanās sensibility with all the courage of her contradictions intact. She is a feminist who does not deny her femininity. In maverick director Mahesh Bhattās Arth (Meaning, 82), the mainstream film that catapulted her to star status, Azmi played the betrayed wife who finally finds the courage to piece her self-esteem back together, overcome her pain, and even find sympathy for the schizophrenic, guilt-ridden Other Woman (Smita Patil). Azmi and Patil, two icons of Indiaās Other Cinema, were pitted against each other in this Indianization of Paul Mazurskyās An Unmarried Woman, which flaunted its directorās autobiographical excesses. Azmiās powerhouse performance was a revelation: her bitter outburst at her husband and his mistress at a party leaves the adulterous couple shaken and shame-faced. At a stage in her career where the actressās practiced professionalism was so controlled that there seemed little room for surprise, Arth enabled her to inject an essential touch of unpredictability. (The haunting Smita Patil, who died young, was a contemporary who challenged Azmi into giving her best; when Patilās incandescent love affair with the camera ended, Azmi confirmed this in a moving tribute, mourning not only an esteemed colleague but a brilliant actress whose rivalry constantly kept her on her thespian toes.)
Schooled in the Benegal repertory of ensemble performance, Azmi often reveals astonishing generosity when sharing the screen with younger actors. This is exemplified in Benegalās rambunctious brothel farce Mandi (The Marketplace, 83), in which The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is thoroughly Indianized (one should say Deccan-ized, because the setting evokes the Islamic ambience of Hyderabad with its unique patois of earthy, localized Urdu). Azmi gained weight for the matronly amble of Rukminibai, the amoral madam who plays an aging coquette-cum-solicitous-mother to her ćgirlsä; by turns whiny and gutsy, bawdy and pious, sheās a character in the round. Rukminibaiās cultural affectations and pretensions to upholding the traditions of semi-classical music, poetry, and dance within her kotha (a refined name for a bordello) are sincere and yet calculated to shame her patrons into generosity. Azmi is the pivot for this hard-edged satire.
For a really salty image, see Doosri Dulhan (The Second Bride, 83), in which Azmi played a prostitute minus the coy frills. She smoked beedis, muttered choice cusswords, and tried to seduce the fastidious aristocrat who wants her to bear his child because his even more fastidious wife canāt abide test-tube babies or adoption. Azmi obviously relished this role÷but the director sanitized her character into sainthood. Or thereās Log Kya Kahenge (What Will the World Say?, 82), another unworthy shocker, in which Azmi played an adulterous Medea who murders her son when he catches her with her lover. From frustration to sexual exultation to guilt ÷ it was a classic example of a hypnotic performance unable to redeem puerile material.
Often synonymous with deglamorization, Azmi was frequently called upon to convey the many shades of female sexuality. Aparna Senās Sati (Chaste Wife, 89) is a sustained indictment of 19th-century Hindu societyās practice of consigning widows to burn on their dead husbandsā funeral pyres and the symbolic fate of a mute orphan ritually married off to a tree. Uma, Azmiās child-woman, is like a cornered animal at first, but slowly, we see an individual emerge. . . . The actressās eloquent eyes and calibrated body language express all of the characterās frustration, sexual awakening, anger, and anguish.
The film that really pushed the envelope for Azmiās audience was Fire (96)÷not so much for the discreetly filmed lesbian scenes, which flouted the logic of attraction and forced the issue somewhat prematurely, but for needling neo-fascist Hindu fundamentalists into goonish retaliation against theaters showing the film. Western audiences might wonder what all the fuss was about: lesbianism in a cloistered household where the husbands leave the wives seething in sexual frustration? Theyāre missing the cultural point: conditioned by segregation, Indian men and women are comfortable with same-sex physical intimacy with absolutely no sexual connotation. Deepa Mehtaās film fast-forwards this easy intimacy into a lesbian relationship. What finally rescues the uneven narrative is Azmiās performance. Like all great actors, she is both subtle and flamboyant, intuitive and intelligent. Her characterās stoic acceptance of sexual rejection blooms into self-knowledge and fulfillment, ignited by her young sister-in-lawās spirited rebellion.
The most difficult part of acting is to convey this sense of inner change. Azmi has done it in many films with subtle shifts of emphasis. Though the art of baring oneās soul can become monotonous, Azmi constantly brings forth fresh insights into the ever-evolving new woman, with an intelligent grasp of each protagonistās particular context. The pregnant peasant of Paar was an emanation of the Indian earth comparable to Nargisās Radha in Mother India; at the opposite end of the spectrum, Azmi was impeccably elegant as the Westernized feudal socialite (shades of Benazir Bhutto) in Immaculate Conception (92). In Godmother, Azmi transforms herself before our eyes from the quietly supportive wife of a community leader into an ambitious, often ruthless, skilled political player who finally rediscovers her integrity and the courage to act on it. (After the horrific Muslim pogroms of Gujarat earlier this year, Vinay Shuklaās film is eerily resonant.)
In Mrityudand (Death Sentence, 97), Azmiās rejected, seemingly barren wife warms to an affair with a social ćinferior.ä There is a quiet but emphatic assertion of self when her character, now pregnant, claims the baby in her womb as ćhers.ä In just a few scenes, Azmi imprints her presence on a narrative crowded with clichés. She also has the self-effacing grace to merge herself and her pain with the doomed chiaroscuro and magnificent desolation of Khandhar, Mrinal Senās most muted film. Her serene, self-contained work here is magical, akin to a musicianās intuitive ability to be in sur, or perfect pitch ÷ without which it is impossible to create music.
Maithili Rao is a film critic based in Bombay.
© 2002 by Maithili Rao
