Provoked
had it all - A brilliant subject matter that needed
to be highlighted, a real life storybase about
how one woman's bravery helped fuel a nationwide
crusade and irrevocably altered British laws on
domestic violence and a lead actress who for once
does full justice to her role. However what should
have been a hard-hitting eyeopener merely ends
up as a well-intentioned film and nothing more.
The film is based on the book Circle of Light:
An Autobiography by Kiranjit Ahluwalia and
Rahila Gupta and looks at the life of Kiranjit
Ahluwalia. Born into a privileged family in India,
she came to England in 1979 to be married to a
man she had met only once. The next ten years
were to be a nightmare of almost daily, physical,
mental and sexual violence at the hands of her
husband. Isolated by a society in which wife-beating
was regarded as a normal part of life, Kiranjit,
in desperation, killed the man who had tortured
her for so long. Bewildered, poorly advised and
speaking little English, she was sentenced to
life imprisonment for murder. In prison, she unexpectedly
found a degree of freedom she had never known
in the outside world. For the first time she was
safe from beatings and abuse, and was able to
make friends with other women Meanwhile, a campaign
to secure a retrial was gathering momentum. Media
coverage of her plight had made Kiranjit something
of a 'cause celebre', and she was attracting many
prominent supporters. The case against her was
finally dismissed in September 1992, and she was
released amid scenes of rejoicing.
 The
weak, simplistic and superficial script and the
ineffectual direction are the film's biggest drawbacks.
Barring to a certain extent Aishwarya Rai and
Miranda Richardson, most of the other characters
needed to be much better fleshed out. In particular
the one character who suffers the most here is
the violent husband. Kiranjit in real life herself
mentioned he had his nice moments with her and
was more of a split personality but what we have
here is just a one-dimensional stereotypical drinking,
womanizing arsehole.
True, cinema is a different medium from the written
world of books and real life case studies but
there is so much more to Kiranjit's life that
has been left out that is relevant to her story
and to add more depth and other layers to the
film. The film seems to suggest that Kiranjit
suffered in silence throughout until her final
'provocation.' In truth, Kiranjit was afraid to
have children because she feared that she would
never be able to leave her husband, but she was
pressurized by Deepak's family to undergo medical
examinations to find out why she had not yet become
pregnant. Deepak forced Kiranjit to have sex with
him and she subsequently had 2 children. The boys
were terrified of their father and were also subjected
to his violence. Kiranjit attempted to seek help
from her family who merely told her to go back
and be 'a good wife' and that it was her duty
'to make the marriage work.' She also got 2 court
injunctions in an effort to stop Deepak's attacks
on her, but to no effect. She ran away in desparation
but he found her and brought her back. Kiranjit
began to drink in order to dull the pain and was
deeply ashamed of her drinking. She even took
2 overdoses, pushed beyond endurance by the misery
of her existence. But all this is totally overlooked
in the film. This unfortunately takes away from
us understanding Kiranjit and the trauma she underwent
for ten whole years and dilutes the film as a
convenient little tale against injustice and nothing
more.
To be fair, there are sequences which leave their
mark. The jail sequences where the bonding takes
place between Kiranjit and fellow cellmate Veronica
Scott (Miranda Richardson) though too pat and
easy, the emerging confidence of Kiranjit in jail
as she finds 'freedom' in jail, her picking up
English and even taking on the jail bully -a woman
clearly much larger and stronger then her are
well handled. Along with some of the court scenes.
It is here that the film comes into its own. (Incidentally
if the film is a true story, the cellmate that
Kiranjit befriended was Sarah Thornton, so why
has her name been changed to Ronnie Scott?)
 The
film finally should silence those who scoff at
Aishwarya's acting abilities. For once the actress
is in fine form, playing a real character in a
real manner even if she looks nothing like a Punjabi
or like the real Kiranjit for that matter. Managing
a reasonable Punjabi dicton, making splendid use
of her eyes and showing an ability to express
herself through silence, she captures both the
moods of fleeting moments of happiness and the
horrific domestic violence she is subjected to
equally well. Whether it is the elation of meeting
her children in jail or taking on the jail bully
or her bonding with Miranda Richardson, she more
than holds her own. Richardson as the fellow cell
mate who also has been a victim of domestic violence
and who has also killed her husband helps lift
the film several notches. Here is an actress who
is in total control of her craft. Naveen Andrews,
otherwise a really fine actor, suffers from his
woefully written character and can't do much other
than going through the motions while Nandita Das
comes off as 'acting.' Indian English is very
tough to handle on the silver screen if it is
not to sound stilted and stagy and Das doesn't
quite carry it off.
Unfortunately the flips as mentioned above are
many. The obvious and predictable flashback sequences
though perhaps intented to show Kiranjit's past
life with minimum fuss are weakly constructed
and hamper the narrative flow to a great extent.
If she holds a jacket, you have a scene with the
jacket, if the mother-in-law is asked if she ever
saw her son abusing Kiranjit, you immediately
show a scene where she does and then come back
to her in court saying of course not. As the flashbacks
reduce in the second half, we actually have a
more lucid narrative flow between the jail and
the court, you wonder why this was not followed
for the rest of the film as it is here that the
film actually shows glimpses of what could have
been. Even the camera work and other technical
accompaniments appear more fluid and with the
film. If the filmmaker were to follow Kiranjit's
past, perhaps having a single and longer flashback
might have worked far better than its present
structure. Worse however, is the treatment of
the Southall Black Sisters (SBS) Outfit, an arm
of the Justice for Women Organization, that campaigns
for and supports women who have fought back against
or killed their violent male partners. The SBS
group comes across as brainless who only get breakthrough
bloody good ideas accidentally through inane conversations.
Their scenes are easily among the worst written
in the film. In fact, the SBS lot is pretty disappointed
with the film saying it is full of factual and
legal inaccuracies.
Technically the film is adequate at best. While
Madhu Ambat's cinematography is reliably effiecient,
the Production Design again though adequate does
show the lack of budget in places while AR Rahman's
background is surprisingingly disappointing especially
in the first half of the film. The film could
have done with some tighter editing. Nandita Das's
big emotional scene at the pub seems intended
more to give her something to justify her presence
in the film rather than really fit into the film's
natural flow.
All in all, the film is just about watchable
for the performances of Ms. Rai and Richardson.
Otherwise Provoked is a film of wasted
chances.
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