Filmmaker Arati Kadav’s Mrs has struck a universal chord with the audience

The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach—how we have all grown up on romantic notions of this idiom. Yet, what this pursuit does to women, well, watch Arati Kadav’s Mrs. With her latest movie, the engineer-turned-filmmaker has not only exposed deeply rooted patriarchal value system that defines and deters women, but also achieved another near impossible feat.

As a rule, remakes come under a lot of flak, but she has breathed a new flavour and cultural context to the cult Malayalam film The Great Indian Kitchen. She has not only escaped unfair comparisons, but is also winning rave reviews.

When the film came to her, she herself was aghast. “Why on earth should we remake a film which has such a lovely relationship with its viewers?” But her producer Harman Baweja, who himself had been so impressed by the original, told her, “After watching The Great Indian Kitchen, I felt even asking my wife for a glass of water was not done. I want North Indian men also to take home similar truths.” Now that the film is streaming on Zee5, it has expectedly struck a universal chord with women across the spectrum.

Changing beliefs

However, male viewers too are rethinking and relooking at their so called progressive beliefs. One such viewer told her, ‘I thought I was quite woke in letting my wife work and also took much comfort and pride in the fact that she has a cook and all. Now, after watching Mrs, I have realised I am not doing her any favour. This is her right.”

Of course, amidst the torrent of positive reviews also stands one odd negative appraisal, casting aspersions on the relevance of the film in the 21st century, the age of Gen Z. Kadav just can’t believe that there are people, may be living under a rock, who believe that the concerns raised in the film are not relatable or not all pervasive. In fact, why she said yes to the film was how it resonated with her at a personal level too. She avers, “We have all seen our mothers, aunts and cousins go through this grind. Young women we spoke to had similar tales to tell.” Why even though she is married to her class-fellow, she felt a gender shift after marriage. She adds, “Marriage in India is like transference of ownership. However privileged we might be, the world is seen through gender lens.”

Fight for parity

If patriarchy is deeply entrenched, even normalised, in our society, she admits, “Things are not much different in the film industry either. The change has begun only recently. Even then the work that my male counterparts get doesn’t come to me as easily.” Perhaps, that is the reason she wanted a 50 per cent crew for her film. She states, “At times you have to fight for parity.” But for Mrs, she also wanted a female gaze that would look into minor details like tea cups, etchings on the mirror, extra lace on the furnishings et al. Interestingly, while the film bares the drudgery of household work, it also paints vivid pictures of preparation of food, like an art form. She admits juxtaposing the two was a tough call, “But I wanted to bring both the joys and horrors of cooking.”

Shining Sanya

Having a consummate actress like Sanya Malhotra on board made it even easier to navigate. If usually actors go to town about how proficient their directors are, Kadav can’t stop extolling Sanya’s sterling qualities, both as a person and an actor. Net result is a nuanced portrayal of Mrs, whose tell-all title is as revealing as the film. She shares, “For the longest time, we went with the working title of The Great Indian Kitchen. But, then someone suggested Mrs and it struck and stuck. For isn’t it true that while men are always Mr, women become Mrs after marriage.”

In future, Kadav, whose first love is sci-fi genre, and has made films like Cargo and several shorts around the subject, would want to marry science fiction with character-driven drama. As a child, like most Indians, she grew up watching classic Bollywood films, KJo cinema most certainly. Precisely, why the great Bollywood festival, karwa chauth had to figure prominently in her film! “There was no way I was not going to include it in the film, for isn’t there inherent patriarchy underlying this fast too.” There are other ways in which she intends to knock down a few more sexist norms; a hundred per cent all-woman crew for one, which ‘would actually be akin to a party’. A soft-spoken woman, if direction is Kadav’s superpower, cinema is the only activism she knows. More power to her.