Nowadays, movies are the most intuitive and fascinating way to disseminate culture across nations. To know more about India’s civilization, culture, and Humanities deeply, Indian film will be an excellent way to gain knowledge. According to Rachel Dwyer, Indian movie “interprets Indian history, telling stories about the nation – whether under threat or victorious; about sexuality and gender, looking at great figures of the past, implying a contrast with the present”. (Bollywood’s India: Hindi Cinema as a Guide to Modern India). This Sunday, I went to watch a movie called Kabir Singh in an Indian movie theatre Fun Movie Grill, which is located at 1210 E. Beltline Rd, Richardson. Kabir Singh is an Indian Hindi-language romantic drama film, and it reveals the society and problems of modern India.
The story happens in Delhi, India. Kabir Singh is an excellent surgeon at a medical college, but he has a serious anger management problem. Because of his bullying behavior, he was asked to drop out of school or writing an apology letter. He plans to leave but when he meets Preeti, a beautiful freshman in the college, he changes his mind. With his reputation, Kabir does not allow any boys to get close to Preeti except himself. Gradually, Preeti fells in love with Kabir and they get a romantic relationship. Three years later, Preeti brings Kabir to her family, but her father does not like him and force him to leave. Preeti marries another man and Kabir starts taking drugs, drinking alcohol to cope with his emotions.
From this movie, we can find that social status between men and women seems still having a problem in modern India. Indian women are in a weak position in society, although the Indian government has been working to improve women’s employment and education since the 1950s. In Kabir Singh, all the girl students are quiet and obedient, despite they are allowed to study in a college. Even Preeti, the female leading role, is not talking too much. She always obeys Kabir, do whatever he told to and if Pretti angers him, he always shouts at her or slaps her without any counter.
Another problem the movie tells us is about marriage. In this film, Preeti’s father prevents his daughter to marry Kabir. The true-loved couple has no choice but to separate with each other. Suffering from leaving his loved one, Kabir is addicted to alcohol and drugs and makes a big mistake: he participated in an operation while he was drunk. Though the film has a happy ending, arranged marriages hurt many people in India. Marriages must be arranged by parents, once parents have decided, the engagement would behold immediately. The good thing is that now more people advocate freedom of choice in marriage, and the tragedy in the movie might be prevented happening in the real world.
Overall, Kabir Singh is an attractive movie. It shows India civilization and culture, and criticizes the feminism and arranged marriage in India. I did not watch many Indian movies before and I noticed that I underestimated them.