“9″: The Women as the Warrior
Growing up one of my favorite stories in Indian mythology, was that of Durga, the fierce warrior form of the Divine Mother or Devi. As per legend, when the demon king Mahishasur, was wreaking havoc on the 3 worlds, the Gods went to the Trinity( Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) seeking help. The fury of the trinity generated a beam of light, from every deity present, that culminated at the ashram of the Rishi Katyan( which explains one of her names Katyayani). From this sea of light, thus emerged Durga, literally the invincible, containing the energies of all the gods presents. She bore every weapon of the Gods, Shiva’s trident, Vishnu’s discus, Indra’s thunderbolt in her 10 arms, riding atop a lion( or a tiger as per some other legends). Her laughter shook the earth, her skin glowing with a radiant reddish hue, she charged upon the demon king, and vanquished him, the day which is celebrated as Durga Puja( Eastern India) or Dasara or Navratri, depending on where you are located.
Durga, Bhavani, Amba, Bhadrakali, Chandi, Shyamala, Chamundi the names are varied aplenty, all signifying the different forms in which the Devi or the Mother Goddess has manifested herself. Cities have been named after her Shimla( Shyamala Devi), Chandigarh( Chandi), some cities have her as their patron goddess, Vijayawada( Kanaka Durga), Mysore( Chamundeshwari). She has been the family deity of many a Rajput family, who would invoke her blessings before going to war. She was the inspiration to Shivaji, in the form of Goddess Bhavani. In most of the villages down South, one sees a village dedicated to the village deity, or the Gram Devta. Usually bearing names like Poleramma, Paidithalli, Banari Amman, Mysamma depending on the region again, the Goddess in the Shakti form is usually worshiped as a protector of the village, one who cures diseases, punishes the evil doers. The Jataras or the festivals of these village deities have become major events, with political leaders, big wigs hot footing it there.
The village deity or the Ammoru( Amman in Tamil Nadu), has become a part of the rural folklore, with stories, ballads, legends around her. Movie makers cashed in on this craze to create a wave of Amman/ Devi movies, where the Devi generally protects her innocent devotees from harm. K.R.Vijaya was famous for playing such kind of roles. One such movie i recall in 1995 was the Telugu flick Ammoru, where the local village deity, takes a human form to protect her devotee from harm. The movie was not just a success, it turned out to be a phenomenon of sorts in Andhra Pradesh, made on a modest budget, with no big stars, it turned out to be a monster hit. What accounted for the success, though, was the eye popping visual effects, especially the climax scene, where the Goddess, kills the evil Tantrik. Theaters turned into mini temples, as audiences went into a religious frenzy, replicas of the Goddess were set up for audiences, smarter movie hall owners came up with ideas like gifting a pair of sarees ad sindoor free to the female audiences who thronged the theaters. The movie also changed the fortunes of two of it’s main female stars. Ramya Krishna, who played the Goddess, was till then stuck in a glam, sex kitten image, with this movie she became the next K.R. Vijaya, and played the role in a couple of other movies too. Soundarya, who played the innocent devotee, became a major star after this movie, and went on to become one of the better actresses in Telugu cinema, before her untimely death in an air crash.
Ammoru kicked off a series of such movies both in Tamil & Telugu. Most of them had a standard template, the heroine usually an innocent devotee of the Goddess would either be married off to a cad, or face problems with her in laws/ villians/ tantriks( take your pick). She would bear all her misfortunes, believing in the Goddess, who would then assume a human form, set things right, play the trouble shooter, teach the bad people a lesson, and everything ends well. Majority of the movies were predictable, filled with hammy acting, no proper plot, but they often had a good run in the small town/rural centers or what in trade parlance was called the B& C centers.
The idea of a female warrior, has a kind of attraction to it, maybe having being conditioned to seeing the heroine as the damsel in distress, one when sees her sword in hand, fighting the bad guys, it gives a kind of thrill, a kind of excitement. Mary Ann Evans an Anglo Indian, made her debut in an aptly titled movie Hunterwali in 1935. She would go on to achieve fame as Fearless Nadia, becomming a legend in her own lifetime, cast as the Avenging Angel in a whole host of flicks Himmatwali, Stunt Queen, Hurricane Hansa, Tigress, most of them showcasing her horse riding, acrobatics abilities. She was one of the few who did all the stunts herself. Again never seen most of her movies though, but Nadia would prove to be an inspiration for some of my favorite female kick ass moments in movies.
Zeenat in Don
And nothing more memorable than watching Zeenat Aman in Don, for the first time, Gosh had rarely seen such a kick ass babe in Hindi movies. Most of the times, i was often used to watching heroines being rescued by the heroes, but here was a heroine, who could kick, do the chop, and oh yes looked a million bucks. I was fida on Zeenie baby for quite some time, yep she was my first big crush.Hema Malini in Seeta Aur Geeta, as the more aggressive Geeta, driving a whole set of cops bonkers, whipping the resident lech, whacking the senses out of her step Mama, in fact both Dharam and Sanjeev reduced to onlookers in this delightful entertainer.
Rekha making a transition from a plain Jane, ugly duckling to a glam queen and then to an avenging Fury in Khoon Bhari Maang, and the climax scene, playing around with Kabir Bedi, and then the climax scene, where she beats him to a pulp, and throws him to the crocs. Must be one of the very few times, i have seen Shotgun Sinha playing second fiddle to a heroine.
Dimple Kapadia in Zakhmi Aurat, taking revenge on her rapists, getting them, castrating them, with help of her friend. Not too great a movie, but worked mainly because of Dimple’s performance. Dimple really seemed to do these kind of avenging angel roles perfectly, recall another similiar kinda performance in Lava, where forcibly married to Raj Babbar, she goes around and makes his life a hell. One of the best IMO, though would be Smita Patil in Mirch Masala, in a knock out performance as a feisty rural woman, left to fend for herself alone against a lecherous Subedar, when the men folk of the village desert here, and a haunting climax, that just stayed with me for days together.
And can never forget Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, in the Alien series, taking on the Aliens, singlehandedly, a one woman army. Sigourney had that kind of feisty, tough as nails look, coupled with a dominating sexuality, that brings credibility to the role of Ripley. She looked every inch the female John Rambo, gunning down the Aliens, and then her fight with the Mother Alien, kick ass.
Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, in the Terminator series, however seemed, an unlikely action heroine, short build, and not very glamorous, she seemed more the girl next door. However she made it up with her sassy attitude, some great acting, and kick ass stunts. In Terminator, she was the girl on the run being chased by Arnie, a mousy timid woman, who bears the child who would threaten Sky Net. In Terminator 2, she transforms into a hard as nails, bitter, woman fighter, who has to save her son, the motherly instincts showing here.
Beatrix Kiddo, aka the Black Mamba or simply known as the Bride, the only person to know the “5 Point Palm Heart Exploding Technique”. When Bill and his Gang of Vipers crash into her wedding, shoot her dead, rape her, she swears to take revenge and so she does in one of the bloodiest vengenance saga ever seen. Uma Thurman has been one among the really good actresses in Hollywood, be it the junkie Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction, Fantine in the movie adaptation of Les Miserables as well as rom coms like The Truth about Cats and Dogs, she always has performed exceptionally well. Kill Bill was her second collaboration with Tarantino, and as she performs the acrobatics, her expressions conveying the revenge, the fury, the agony, we are just entranced by her.
Trinity in Matrix, Carrie Ann Moss, looking devastatingly sexy with her body hugging black suit, her shades, and then her acrobatic action scenes. Kate Beckinsale her perfect figure enhanced by her sleek body suit, taking on the vampires as Selene in Underworld. And of course Ms. Angelina Jolie, as Lara Croft, the Tomb Raider, as devastating with the guns as she is with her looks.
And now comes the latest addition to the “League of the Kick Ass Babes”.
Among the “9″ Stitchpunks set out to save Humanity, “7″ is the lone woman in the group. She is the defender of the Group, the warrior, fiercely independent, adventurous, patrolling the wasteland. Adaptable, an instinct to survive, wearing a skull helment. Irrational and stubborn at times, and yet calm in crisis. She is the kind who would give you her life. “7″ is the tribute to the kick ass babes, the Ripleys, the Lara Crofts, the Sarah Connors, the Trinities, whom we have grown up admiring. Women who are fiercely independent, resourceful, die hard, and yet carrying a human touch, we see it in the Bride’s love for her daughter, when she is not wreaking havoc on her enemies, we see it in Ripley’s tender care toward the child in Aliens, uncompromising as ever in her fight with the Aliens, Sarah Connor not yielding an inch to the Terminators, yet tender towards her son. Women who are ruthless towards their enemies, yet the very epitome of tenderness, affection towards their loved ones.
7 is my favorite in terms of poses struck. Growing up on martial arts movies, 7’s got that real Bruce Lee kind of quality that is just really strong.- Tim Burton
And the voice behind ”7″ is a woman, whom i saw for the first time in a Disney flick called “The Rocketeer”, and fell for her right there. Very few heroines had that effect on me, she was one of them. And then i saw her in “A Beautiful Mind”, cast opposite Russel Crowe, an actor who at the best of times can chew up the entire scenery, an actor who actually managed to steal the thunder from Al Pacino in the Insider, not a mean feat. Russel Crowe in the role of John Nash, at any other time, he could have reduced the others to mere extras, but the woman cast opposite to him, was someone else, she was beautiful, she was charming and oh boy she was talented.
Style+Class=Ms. Connelly
Jennifer Connely- A beautiful face, a to die for figure, mixed with a sensousness, add some solid acting talent, a deep inner strength and now the voice behind ”7″. The same sexy voice that just made me go nuts over her.
The Gorgeous Ms.Connely
Rocketeer and A Beautiful Mind, made me explore more movies of Ms. Connely, an exploration that made me end up admiring her more and more than ever. For a heroine blessed with drop dead gorgeous looks, and one of the sexiest figures, Connelly, could have made a mark, simply playing the lead in rom coms or the damsel in summer blockbusters. But her resume is studded mostly with indie features, strong story oriented dramas. She was sizzling, and thats an understatement in movies like The Hot Spot and Mullholland Falls, which has that by now famous scene where the detectives watch a film of her, having sex in the motel with a stranger. A junkie in Requiem for a Dream, a woman desperately seeking to take her home in House of Sand and Fog, a crusading journalist in Blood Diamond, her repertorie of roles is indeed varied. Interestingly though till date she has never played a female warrior kinda role, this is her first attempt, albeit only in a VO, not on screen.
So what made Ms. Connely accept the role?
Jen Co doing the VO for #7
Connelly watched Shane Acker’s 2005 short ”9″ along with her kids and they loved it. She had never done a VO before, but the concept appealed to her. For Acker too this was a role as ”real” as it could be.
I have two kids. I watched the short film with them and they thought it was the coolest thing they had seen. They watched it over and over again, so I couldn’t not be part of 9.
Connelly was also fascinated by the visuals, the designs. For some one doing her first VO, director Shane Acker, patiently listened to every question of hers, getting her into the thick of action, literally speaking.
The animators also made use of some of Ms. Connely’s mannerisms, the way she tilts her head, the way she stands between the takes, bringing a realistic touch to the character.
“7″ is one of the most critical characters among the ”rag tag” group of ”stitch punks”. She is the one taking on the “Machines” fighting them, one of them a particularly vicious one called “Seamstress”.
9 and 7 escape from one of the machines.
5,9 and 7 in a spot of bother
7 helps out 9
And so i sign off for now awaiting 9.9.09 and oh yeah to again listen to the ever gorgeous Ms.Connelly.
Tags: 9, Aliens, Dasara, Durga Puja, Jenniffer Connely., Kill Bill, Linda Hamilton, matrix, shakti, terminator, The Tim Burton Blog Fest 2009, uma thurman, Woman Warriors
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Thanks for mentioning Smita Patil in Mirch Masala. One of these days..
all hail fu man chu! kung fu sensei and purveyor of fine females.
Nice post Ratnakar ji… there was a film named Sherni in which a SriDevi also played similar kind of role.. not a good movie…but Sridevi was asusual great…
Ratnakar jee – where did you find all those pics of Nadiya the Fearless? Care to share. I collect old posters, in digital or print form.
Tejas, send me your e-mail id. I have some good ones. If you’re looking for Hollywood posters, this is a good site-
http://zomd.net/Shopping/Entertainment/Television_and_Movies/Posters/Vintage
Heard of Neville Tuli? Google him…you’ll identify with his passion.
Aarti, merci! Please send whatever you’ve got this way – tezasster at gmail dot com.
I have some old posters that I found on Google. I have been roaming around a lot at shops in the alcoves of old cities (New York, Richmond, Ahmedabad) to find out vinyl records and old posters. Sometimes I buy vinyl records just for the sake of the drawing on sleeves!
Tejas, reminds me when i was in Seoul, i had gone to the Indian Bank there for some work. After work, i was walking through an underground shopping complex kinda thing. One shop caught my attention, it was a choc a bloc with old LP records, featuring some of my favorites.
Again in Seoul, went to a pub, with some of my friends, that guy had an awesome collection of rock LP’s.
somethin about them ol’ records. I have found some in the weirdest of places. some places will have the worst books, but wait til you find that Stones record you always wanted. My dream haunt for ol’ posters and records wud be Chicago. the underground music shop opp the indie theater(landmark century i guess) or Reckless Records in downtown.
now we are talking!
Hmm any guess where in India we could find such stuff, leaving out the Chor Bazaar kind.
I think you have to go at rather obscure places. Reckless Records is way too famous.
But Southern cities in US should have plenty of them. They don’t seem to have got rid of the nostalgia. Fortunately, I haven’t either, and I didn’t even exist during those times.
First of all its Ratnakar, yaar pls dont JeeIfy or Sirify me, u making me feel so wise, which i am not even remotely close to.
Well something called Google Images, was doing a search for Nadia’s pics, and found it on some random site, liked the collage one.
Aah…well, red herring! I thought you had them somewhere in your collection and just pulled them out.
Actually check this one – http://picasaweb.google.com/pascal.lepottier/HindiFilms#
Some awesome posters there.
Great collection of posters, ha, wish i cud have, too lazy to make one though, he, he.
nice posters. such sites and sources are always helpful. sid is also a resident poster fansite junkie.
And as of this post, Majaa aa gaya man! Sid had warned me about it being fiery n all. So I wanted to take my own sweet time. And what a revelation, personal, detailed, funky, and ubercool. This is the kind of writing that inspires. And nice collage too. I would love to see you in more of such moods more often.
Reading about the B goddesses(literal ones) made me think of Arundhati. I could relate to what was being talked about.
Then Seeta aur Geeta, well captured the nuances of that time’s goddess-worship. Khiladi hai koi…
Mirch Masala, another classic unrelenting tigress template.
Ripley, Sarah Connor…you got ‘em all.
Uma Thurman never ceases to surprise. At times I catch some of her unknown film, and it is always fun to see her transform.
Jenni Connely. I can’t say for sure I notice all the aspects when she is on screen, much for the same reasons as any self-respecting gone-doodles-fan would go doodles. She was a scream in every film she did, and I could never take my eyes off her, even the soggy house of sand and fog.
You have revved me all up for 7 in 9. May the heavens come tumbling down soon. Amen.
Thanks Tush, well “Girls with Guns” is one of my favorite topics, nothing kicks me on more than to see a female with a gun/sword in hand. Yeah Arundhati, latest addition to list of Kick Ass babes. Love Uma Thurman, she is freaking hot, and makes one of the sexiest assasins ever. Regarding Jen Co, yeah same here, flipped out for her in A Beautiful Mind, and then all that steamy stuff in Mullholland Falls, Hot Spot ooh man, what a perfectly sculpted body.
Sinful, to say the least. :-)
Now only Ratnakar, had you mentioned Faster Pussycat Kill Kill there!!
Any Russ Meyer fans here? I think we should start a B-movie brigade then.
I mean I don’t have an old jacket and cheap cigarette lighter on me, but can I come?
B-Movie, Cheese burgers i am in, and can take Sid, Tush for better effect.
Who’s starting then? Bring my fish n chips and hefeweizen, and let’s begin!!
I just remembered. We got a few ol’d Carpenter films yest. So I should talk about them very soon.
Loved Carpenter’s Big Trouble In Little China, dunno why it got bad reviews. BTW filmsite, is doing a George Romero special, all his Zombie series flicks.
B’lore has a few places. There is this old poster shop off brigade, then few surprises spring up in those shady majestic lanes, the old haunt avenue haunt, sometimes even Blossoms can give you a kick with some seconds CD. but ya, nothing really as cool in concept as reckless records.
I mean Avenue Road.
Tushar, there is a really, and I mean really old Book shop in Richmond. They sell everything retro. How retro, you ask? Magazine pages from 1930s, pin-up girls of 50’s onwards, centerfolds from 60’s, cutouts of original advertisements of Hitchcock’s movie releases from newspapers, books and b-grade posters, porn stars of old times, you name it – chances are you will get it. And by the size of the shop you wouldn’t even realize what the place could hold.
That’s why I am saying, like Indie films, these indie stores hold much more promise than something already famous. ;)
Wow. That sounds like a good sunday plan. I should attack there some day. You are right about the obscure part. I would go to any such place than a famous geek shop. You tend to hit better girls at the former.
I will ask around for that Richmond place. Sid might know.
Now this is interesting, really really interesting. Next time i am in Bangalore, i am there. And oh yeah this discussion is reminding me of another favorite “Ghost World”, Thora Birch, loves the old records, flipping for Steve Buscemi, who collects them.
Amen. Ya, Ghost World. another classic.
It’s called The Book Shop, Richmond, VA, located on the W. Broad street. Another one is Plan 9, but that’s a big store. My fav record store is Record Finder. They also have an online store but nothing beats their physical address.
Thank You, Ratnakar.
A very good study.