Women suffer from patriarchy, yes, but men suffer tremendously from patriarchy too, says 26-year-old Harsh Vardhan Kumar, writer, director and producer of the probing, emotionally charged short film My Hate Letter To Cycles And/Or Self-Harm.
The Delhi-based filmmaker’s experiments in shooting it in black and white
After he made the film, the cryptically titled work went on to screen at several film festivals, including qualifying for the short film competition category at the Mumbai International Film Festival. The Delhi-based filmmaker’s experiments in shooting it in black and white, with a stuffy, seemingly airless room as its only location, are a lot about eyes — eyes almost breaking into tears in close-up, investigating eyes, angry eyes. The monochrome palette enhances the expressions of its four characters moving and talking almost into each other, given the claustrophobic space and feel of the narrative.
Two filmmakers, Shaurya (Vidur Chugh) and Vandit (Jaivardhan Lakhera), are setting up an intimate interview shoot for a project with Madhu (Swati Sodhi), Shaurya’s mother, as his father Naval (Reuben Israel) tensely supervises the goings-on. The questions take a turn that irks the father and ruffles the mother. While the friend Vandit probes, bombarding her with questions about her life, Shaurya is in distress.
Will the mother walk out of the camera’s — and in extension, her son’s — gaze into why she has lived her life the way she has? Will the father be called out for his aggression and violence that seem chronic to this family of three?
Kumar says his choice of subject has some autobiographical underpinnings: “We all have resentments towards our family members, we usually suffer in silence sometimes, because we don’t want to disrupt the superficial peace. This was my way of calling out on family dysfunction, which is universal. I believe every human who is part of a family goes through this at some point in their lives. But as a society, we always avoid calling out our fathers and mothers and siblings.” Kumar believes society often tends to understand the catastrophic long-term effects of oppressive patriarchal behaviour on girls, but not so much when a boy expresses his own struggles with growing up with entitled male behaviour.
The film has pointed dialogues and is visually experimental in form — the entire world of the film mostly in one frame, throbbing with unspoken, pent-up emotional agony.
Kumar says his choice of the experimental form and sense of space is possibly due to his long association with the medium of theatre. “I studied engineering at a college in Dwarka, but I spent a lot of time working in theatre at Delhi University colleges. That’s how I have made my most lingering friendships,” he says. He continues to work in theatre in Mumbai, while working as an assistant at various production houses and writing his feature film screenplay. “I think the road to making the film of choice and getting recognised for it is long and hard. But I am willing to go that road,” Kumar says.
My Hate Letter to Cycles And/Or Self-Harm has the stamp of an adventurous storyteller. There’s been no better time in Mumbai’s film industry for small experiments to be rewarded than now; Kumar’s filmmaking journey has great promise.
DETAILS:
Producer: Harsh Vardhan Kumar
Budget: ₹80,000
Language: English & Hindi
Running time: 20 minutes
Short Stream is a monthly curated section, in which we present an Indian short film that hasn’t been seen before or not widely seen before but are making the right buzz in the film industry and film festival circles. We stream the film for a month on HT Premium, the subscription-only section in hindustantimes.com.
Sanjukta Sharma is a Mumbai-based writer and film critic. Write to her at sanjukta.sharma@gmail.com
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