If a picture paints a thousand words, then Kiran, a young girl of thirteen and something, is a tortured artist. In former social worker-cum-filmmaker Nisha Pahuja's latest, an unrelenting light is shone upon the hapless sufferers of sexual assault, in a pulse-racing documentary that delves into the deep end of contempt for victims such as Kiran. A tour-de-force that challenges the boundaries of traditionally unspoken laws.
To Kill a Tiger is screening at Docuseek
As the dust settles in an almost sepia-like quality, it paints a picture of distress that looms across the screen, bringing a village in the east Indian state of Jharkhand into the new morning. The camera pans to a young girl combing her luscious locks and then braiding them into intricate knots, much like how recent events have tangled her life beyond recognition. The facts… unravel between dramatic closeups of her father, Ranjit, and invites us into his private chambers(all the long guided by Mrinal Desai's intimate camera work) as he recounts the rape of his precious firstborn by the hands of three fellow village folk.
‘To Kill a Tiger' begins as a tale of loss and suffering, with sobering stories of sexual violence discussed when a group of women's rights activists enter Kiran's village, but after a few curated curveballs, sadness turns to anger, as one man fights the very system he was brought up in for his precious kin. Throughout the trial, disturbing revelations are made known about the plight of rape victims that are sure to leave the audience in disbelief. For in a country where ‘one woman gets violated every twenty minutes', she is still expected to marry her assailant, if only to uphold her village's good name.
The oftentimes heavy documentary is as real as it gets, as an increasingly wizened Ranjit-the film shot over eight years-charges against the tide of outdated patriarchal systems, sexist district chiefs (“the girl is still underage, she does not know what she wants”) and a village that threatens to swallow him whole, to overcome the cacophony of background noises that belittle the lesser represented among them. With searing imagery and startling storytelling, it highlights the power of films to get the conversation started on issues that are worth talking about, now so, more than at any other time in history.
The film was hailed as one of the best documentaries at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and was highly praised by executive producers Mindy Kaling and Dev Patel, who regarded it as a ‘triumphant must-watch'. And triumphant it is… for the now-eighteen-year-old Kiran, with her noble sacrifice, has given an alternative voice to the many silenced ‘Kirans' around the world, who have since dared to emerge from the shadows to get the justice they so rightfully deserve.
