Stories To Be Told

So this might be coming a little late, but it had to be done. The recent release, Gulabi Gang, has triggered conversations about the importance and need for documentary films.

Documentary films are fast coming up as a competition and threat to the world of fiction films. But, forgive the cheesiness, it sounds like brothers fighting. Films are a powerful medium of communication. It has more takers than books and has a longer lasting impact. And, yet we are fighting to prove one form of film making to be better than the other. Whatever happened to free will?

Case in point, the recent Gulabi Gang is not the first documentary to be shot on the women's group fighting for women's rights in their area. Kim Longinotto directed a documentary on the same subject called Pink Sarees in 2010. And yet, Gulabi Gang is definitely a bold attempt on the Indian screen and soil.

Following a murder case, it portrays the life that women are pushed to live in Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh. And this is where a lot is left unanswered. A group of women are fighting to give the right to live an honourable life to other women of the area. But we never get to know how they survived their society and the men.

Sampat Pal leads the group from one village to another, helping women to find their dignity in a place where killing a woman is as easy as swatting a fly. This raises the question of her safety and survival. How did she manage to escape and form this group? How did she find support in other women when the sister of a dead girl is ready to protect the family than fight for justice? Why was she or any other member of her group not kidnapped and killed in the dead of the night? To sum it all, how did Gulabi Gang survive?

In an effort the show their work, the makers forgot to show us their base. In that it does not provide me anything different from a fiction film except the real characters and places. 

This is what brings me back to the thought that it is not about fighting an internal battle. It is not about proving whether documentaries are better than fiction. It is about telling a compelling story through the medium of audio-visual and letting it find its own audience.

It is about time that films and film makers take the route of books. All kinds of books are released in a bookstore. It is the reader who decides what to buy instead of the authors trying to breath down their necks.

Try to tell a story well and people will listen.