Rob Munday
With Leela, the titular character in Tanmay Chowdhary’s (Madhu) latest short, absent for the entirety of the film, we’re left to contemplate her disappearance alongside two other young women from her hometown. “There are rumours that she might be dead,” one remarks, but neither woman appears particularly surprised by the possibility. It’s a quietly unsettling introduction to a film concerned not only with what has happened to Leela, but with what her absence reveals about the desolate coastal community she has left behind. A worrying number of women go missing in India and while Chowdhary’s film offers commentary on this wider social reality, its focus is less on the missing woman herself than on the lingering impact her disappearance has on those who remain.
On the surface, the two women appear almost callous towards their absent neighbour. “She must have run away to the city,” one suggests, before adding, “to find more bitches like herself.” Yet the humour and apparent indifference in their exchanges feel less like genuine apathy and more a form of self-preservation. The pair wish to leave this place, but as the film progresses it becomes increasingly difficult to separate their aspirations from the threat hanging over the women who remain there. When they discover a body, their reaction is telling: they seem shocked, but not entirely surprised. Later, a voice on the radio suggests the body is not Leela’s, while mentioning a rise in suicides and growing concerns over the safety of women in the area. Chowdhary never provides easy answers, instead allowing these fragments to accumulate and create a portrait of a community where disappearances have become disturbingly familiar possibilities.
This restraint is central to the film’s effectiveness. Leela is a quiet, contemplative work that leaves considerable space for the audience to interpret what is left unsaid. Its refusal to offer any kind of easy resolution, feels like the perfect reflection on its characters’ own sense of entrapment. In the short’s closing moments, the two women are once again discussing leaving, but seem no closer to escaping than they were at the beginning. It’s a deliberately unresolved conclusion that makes their situation all the more poignant, suggesting that the problem extends far beyond the fate of one missing woman.
Leela once again confirms Chowdhary as an exciting and distinctive filmmaking voice. We unfortunately don’t feature enough films from India on Short of the Week – Leela will be only the 15th film from the country we’ve featured in the past 15 years – but this is an excellent example of the ambitious and important filmmaking emerging from the region.