Chandradeep Das‘s Statement:
The film is a tribute to all the silent survivors in our society, especially ours which reeks of rampant patriarchy. The agony is their triumph. Such survivors run in my family too, and I have seen the pain, anguish, trauma, and an enduring fighting spirit so up-close that it’s etched in my mind forever. Therefore, I decided to tell this story.
A woman stands in line to get some money from the bank, then visits a pharmacist, then we see her cooking, while pondering over a bottle of pills (poison?), then crying in front of a mirror. Soon after, she welcomes a young man and a girl and the three of them have a good time, drinking wine, eating the meal she prepared and laughing. The film then flashbacks to the past, where a very young version of the hostess, is playing hide and seek with a man. She seems to perceive the whole thing as a game, but it is soon revealed that this is not the case for the man, and soon, inside a chicken sty, the laughter becomes screaming. The film then returns to the present, with the reasons behind the woman’s actions become even more revealed, in shocking fashion, with the ending quotes adding to this sense even more.
Chandradeep Das directs a film with almost no dialogue, with the power of the images being the one that communicates the messages he wants to give. In that fashion, Sombhadra Mukherjee’s cinematography is excellent, both in the interior shots that thrive in the use of light and shadow and in the outdoors, with the rather subtly presented rape scene making an excellent antithesis between the beauty of the images and the horribleness of the events, which are communicated through sound and Amit Sur’s quite fitting music.
The way the inner struggle the protagonist experiences is presented, as much as its explanation are the best parts of the narrative, while the ending titles give a definite answer to the question risen about the old man’s role in the end, additionally presenting Das’s purpose of the film.
Sreelekha Mukherji is wonderful in the protagonist role, highlighting her repressed feelings without any words, just with her body stance and look.
Good production quality, a rather important message and a good directorial approach make “The Red Cap” a rather interesting short.
