DAMAN
(Starring Raveena Tandon, Sayaji Shinde, Raima Sen, Shaan and Sanjay Suri)

RATING:
*****
Durga (Raveena Tandon) is a woman who is subjected to marital rape by her husband Sanjay Saikia (Sayaji Shinde with bulging eyes and nostrils, which as so inflated that you could squeeze in a truck with ease).

Unexplainedly, Sanjay Saikia keeps physically abusing his wife like a maniac leading to her seeking emotional refuge with his brother Sunil (Sanjay Suri) with whom she almost has a physical relationship.

Saikia, who incidentally also walks as if he has wounded armpits, accuses his wife of having a physical relationship with his brother.

But in reality, Durga remains within the norms of an adarsh bharatiya nari by letting her suppressed frustrations stay that way by digging her hand deep into the curtains, stopping herself from physically getting close to her brother-in-law.

Raveena bears Sayaji a child after he rapes her in a drunken stupor one night, but he refuses to accept the child as his own. But Durga bears all this as well. Till she realises that the Saikia wants to get his daughter who has a love interest in the form of singer Shaan (in a passable debut) married to another not-so-worthy guy.

And when Sayaji gets too terrorising, kills his brother and tries to kill his own daughter, Durga thinks that all this has gone too far and in the typical Durga-style, plunges a trident (trishul) deep into Saikia, killing him and winning the National Award for the best actress.

The film, which has been funded by the Ministry of Social Welfare, in no way shows what kind of social welfare can be attained by killing one's husband with a trishul, that too after having tolerated all kinds of abuse for more than two decades.

Raveena's torture has been described well and shows the kind of marital rape that ensues within the four walls of Indian houses, but the kind of message that it conveys is dangerous.

Raveena excels as an actress despite all shortcomings in the film. The scene where Raveena kills Sayaji Shinde sees the actress at her emotive best. Another scene that is very well etched is where Sayaji refuses to give Raveena's daughter his name. Sanjay Suri's role in the film is worth a laud and he excels in the scene where he and Raveena confront a drunk Sayaji.

But all said and done, the film does suffer technically when more could have been done with a budget of Rs 8 million, a talented director and a brilliant actress. The script also fails midway. Even the camera refuses to capture the lush locales of Assam where the film has been shot.

There is not much thought which has gone into fixing Durga's look. In a place like Assam, a school dropout like Durga has highlighted hair! The hair is probably the only highlight of the film apart from Raveena who is very sincere. Kalpana needs to go for a fresh direction course at FTII and also lookout for some good producers willing to fund money for the kind of films that she wants to make.

Daman means domination. But do not let the demon …oops Daman let loose on unsuspecting women with misplaced priorities. We could see too many trishuls flying around in Indian households a little too often then.

RELEASE DATE: 4th May 2001