BackNew movie aims at channelling rage about rape
The film, ‘Kill the Rapist?’, directed by Sanjay Chhel, however, doesn’t advocate the death penalty for convicted rapists
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There’s a question mark rather than an exclamation at the end of the movie title, and therein hangs the tale.
Kill the Rapist?, directed by Sanjay Chhel and produced by iRock Media Pvt. Ltd with financial contributions by female private equity investors, doesn’t advocate the death penalty for convicted rapists. Instead, the movie is trying to channel widespread outrage at a perceived increase in sexual crimes against women, said its filmmakers. The 90-minute thriller, set in Delhi, is about a woman (played by Anjali Patil) who tracks down a serial rapist (Sunny Hinduja) who attempts to make her his latest target. “There are layers to the title—I am not advocating that you kill rapists," Chhel said. “If, after seeing the film, a man decides not to rape a woman, I will have succeeded."
Private equity investors Charu Goel from Delhi and a woman identified as Ms Kothari from Mumbai have put money into the ₹ 3 crore movie, said iRock’s founder, Siddhartha M Jain. “These are passion investors, who instantly wrote out cheques after listening to the story," he said. The “aggressive title" pointed to the fact that the movie is about “how the hunter becomes the hunted", Jain added. “Our country is beyond subtlety," he said. “There is a cathartic aspect to the title—we would not have called it Nari Ka Inteqaam (A Woman’s Revenge)."
Kill the Rapist? is targeting a November release, close to a year after the vicious gang-rape and subsequent death of a medical student in Delhi. The 16 December, 2012, incident shocked the country, brought Delhi residents onto the streets in protest, and led to crucial amendments in laws related to sexual crimes. A Bengali movie titled Nirbhaya, which was the name given to the Delhi gang rape victim by some newspapers and channels, is also under production.
Chhel said he was saddened and angered by the Delhi gang rape and the more recent Mumbai incident, but didn’t want to exploit the incidents. “I had been planning a film about rape for a long time, but I was reluctant to make it because Hindi films have dealt with the topic enough, and it has become something of a joke," said Chhel, the writer of such movies as Rangeela and Rascals and the director of three movies, including Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam. He rewrote the screenplay, which unfolds over eight to ten hours, after the Delhi incident, but asserted that the movie won’t be in the vein of older films that inadvertently or deliberately sensationalize rape through scenes of leering men encircling a hysterical woman (for example, Ghar, 1978) or victims being systematically stripped (Insaaf Ka Tarazu, 1980). “There won’t be any skin show or voyeurism," Chhel said.
Kill the Rapist? is a departure of sorts for iRock, whose last release was Ragini MMS in 2011. iRock’s other under-production titles explores edgy themes for young viewers, among them Disco Valley, in which two buddies head to a rave party, Size Zero, a weight-loss comedy set in Amritsar, and Saxxx ki dukaan, starring Vir Das and Siddhant Kapoor as entrepreneurs who set up an online sex toy business.
IRock’s investors include veteran filmmaker and former Adlabs Films head Manmohan Shetty.
A slideshow for a monthly calendar on the company website features scantily clad women striking bold poses. Jain sees his company as an avatar of Vishesh Films, which is run by Mukesh Bhatt and Mahesh Bhatt and cranks out modestly budgeted romances, thrillers and horror films.
“We usually make frivolous, youth-oriented films at iRock, but I wanted to make a movie that engages people," Jain said. “We want to make big-idea films on a small budget," he said.
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