ABSTRACT
Women and Films: A Critique of Adajya (The Flight)
The Assamese-language film Adajya (the Flight), directed by Santwana Bardoloi, brilliantly showcases the agonies of the widows in an orthodox Assamese family striving to assert their individuality against male-centric social norms. The powerful portrayal of the intense emotional agonies of aloneness, pervading sense of solitude being abandoned and left with widowhood—are the hallmarks of the film. When Western feminism raises questions on the role of media technology, or films to be more specific, in representing the condition of women, my argument in this chapter is that such questions can be relevant across cultures. One of the major concerns of second-wave feminism had been the ‘misrepresentation’ of women in the fantasy images circulated by media. Another concern has been the way a ‘real’ woman is systematically represented through a ‘reel’ woman. In writing this chapter, although Western feminist film criticism is used to discuss an Assamese film, no attempt is made to make any critical comment on the film or the source it hinges on. However, reflecting on the arguments of feminist film critics like Laura Mulvey and Sue Thornham among some others, this chapter seeks to explore how production, exchange and circulation of cultural values through films, and in the present case an Assamese film, not only problematise issues of representation of women but also provide thought-provoking insights into the very problematics of representation itself in a homosocial techno world.
