Having made her on-screen debut working with Satyajit Ray more than 60 years ago, Aparna Sen has gone on to blaze a trail as one of India’s most prominent female directors. Her latest film is a provocative study in the aftermath of a rape.
An early scene in Aparna Sen’s The Rapist sees a bunch of slum-dwelling boys mocking one among them for being weak “like a girl”, while playing football. In the subsequent scene, these young adults express their resentment over women getting jobs. With these moments, the veteran filmmaker lays the ground for the heinous crime ahead.
The Rapist is a multi-layered film, which not only spotlights the deep-rooted misogynistic, patriarchal and sadistic attitudes in the milieu of a rapist, but also empathetically uncovers the traumatic after-effects of sexual assault on the victim and her loved ones.
Sen is among the most prominent actors and filmmakers in Bengali cinema, making her acting debut at the age of 16 in Satyajit Ray’s portmanteau drama Three Daughters (1961). She made her directorial debut in 1981 with 36 Chowringhee Lane, a key film of India’s Parallel Cinema movement. Since then, she has made 15 more films and is a winner of nine National Film Awards.
