Suchi Talati: It is important for feminist stories to not sound like a message

A couple of days after its world premiere in the World Dramatic Competition section, Shuchi Talati’s debut feature, Girls Will Be Girls, is being hailed as a breakout film. Set in a regimented boarding school in the hills of North India, it is about teenager Mira’s sexual awakening as she gets swept off her feet by the sweet-talking classmate Sri. But, more than that, it’s a complex exploration of Mira’s stormy relationship with her mother Anila who turns into an unforeseen rival and competitor in Mira’s pursuit of forbidden desires and reckless romance. Preeti Panigrahi is admirably poised and eloquent as Mira, Kesav Binoy Kiron drips charm as Sri and Kani Kusruti aces it as the combative but caring Anila. Together they dance in rare harmony (literally so) despite all the surrounding tumult.

Talati’s unfussy, unpretentious, simple but precise filmmaking pushes the envelope when it comes to the representation of a parent-child relationship in Indian cinema. Tackling issues often brushed under the carpet, the film’s audaciousness, however, is evened by emotional heft, warmth and empathy. Cinema Express spoke to Shuchi shortly after the premiere at Sundance. Excerpts:

First feature films are supposed to come from a personal space. How much of your protagonist Mira is in you and how much of you is in Mira?

All my films come from a personal space; my previous short films and also Girls Will Be Girls. By personal, I don't mean that it happened to me, but the emotional landscape is very familiar. I didn't go to a boarding school, but this kind of a school [shown in the film], which is extremely strict and regimented and where much is prescribed for us, is familiar. I feel like all the characters have a little bit of me. Mira probably has the most of me. The story started with Mira and a school. The first drafts were set fully in the school. So, it was Mira, Sri, and the triangle was with a teacher. Growing up I had seen around me teachers who’d drop a little sari pallu to show a little cleavage and get a little thrill (laughs) and as a teenager, I was so judgmental of them. Then as I was writing it, in wanting to find more complexity in the relationships, I turned it into a mother daughter story.

I'm about Mira's mother Anila's age now so I felt that I was writing in a way about my youth. But my current experiences also ended up infusing the mother. I saw it from her point of view. She's a young woman in her 30s. Why should she be relegated to a life which is asexual, like a supporting role in her daughter and everyone else's life? Why shouldn't she have desires? Why shouldn't she also want to rebel like her daughter? So, it comes from a personal space from the past but also from the present.

There is so much nuance in the mother-daughter relationship, beyond the defined compartments and conventions we tend to box it in. It’s a complex portrayal, their rivalry, jealousy, reconciliation…

This idea comes from the fact that we’re still in a very imperfect, sexist world where we prize women for their youth and their beauty. As you start to lose them, you look at the younger women and think, "Why don't I have it?" Why no longer me? I’ve seen that dynamic between mothers and daughters. It’s so much more common than you would think. I think it's important to write feminist stories which are not like a message but explore the real complexity of experience. I think there's something very political and empowering about just giving voice to this experience, the thing that we like to not see, we like to not talk about, but which is present. I think of my cinema as political in its close examination of gender relationships. How the power structures that exist in society express themselves in these little interpersonal dynamics, about wanting to look sexy to a young boy.

It makes me go back to your short film Period Piece. I see a consistent engagement with themes of gender and sensuality and women finding agency through sexuality…

I'm really interested in how power dynamics play out in sexuality. I've explored it in my previous work, and I don't think I've exhausted it. Sexuality in relationships is so vulnerable, so tender. Whether it's new partners or long-time spouses, little things can hurt you. Like not remembering something, what someone likes or dislikes… Sexuality is almost like a conversation, it has all the beats of wanting something, getting something, rejecting, or accepting. Because it's kind of taboo, I think its portrayal on screen is very simplistic sometimes. All these other dynamics of the relationship don't find their way into the sex scenes that we see in cinema. For me this is a rich territory, where you are not just physically but emotionally naked. It's such a vulnerable space. I'm very interested in it.

In a regular romantic film, it's like people are falling in love, the story is progressing, they have sex, and the story continues. So, the sex is something they do but the relationship and story rarely evolves during this time. And that's not my experience of life.

All your characters are layered. Mira might be a good girl but rebels against the very values she must uphold as a head prefect. Sri might be a charmer but also manipulative.

At times people you love the most are also people you hate the most. They push your buttons just as you push theirs. That complexity exists in all our relationships. I love all my characters, even the mean boys, the bullies at school, or the difficult teacher, Miss Bansal. Sometimes you don't know if she's an ally or not. I don't mean that I condone what they all do, but I understand where they're coming from, I wanted that understanding to infuse my writing. Mira has a face that she puts out into the world, and she wants to be this head prefect and has this perfect appearance. But she's like a young woman who's discovering her sexuality, and wants to explore things. In Indian cinema you have the vamp or the good girl. The vamp is the one who's allowed access to her sexuality and the nice girl is not. But that’s not how people are. I wanted her to be the good girl who is allowed to explore her sexuality and have agency in that matter.

The bullies have fathers who are bullying them. The teacher is a woman who is laying down and upholding the patriarchal order of the school. But you also see that she's somehow trying to do her best. She’s trying to make sense through her own lens. The mother has her own desires, but loves her daughter deeply, like a fierce lioness who will protect her cub when push comes to shove.

Sri pushes people's buttons, but you understand that his parents are absent. He's had to develop charm as a defence mechanism, getting people to like him quickly. So, I really see all my characters with all their flaws. And then I love them deeply and try to write from that point of view.

There is a preciseness to your film. I got the sense that a lot must have gone into its writing…

The bulk of the work did happen in the writing. I write and I rewrite and I was really happy that the script went through a number of script labs. It's like I had an opportunity to workshop it with other peers who were at the lab or with the mentors who were often so insightful. Sometimes you just really need somebody from the outside to say,

"Oh, I see what you're trying to do, but here's where you're not quite hitting the mark." I do think that as a writer, as you continue to write the same script, not only do you become generally a better writer, but you become a better writer of that particular story. For me almost every draft is like a rewrite. I don't mean to say that I'm throwing out all the scenes, but sometimes I'm like, let me just try and write that scene again without looking at it and I may discover another layer to it. For me it's very important that the scenes work at least at three or four different layers, that different things are happening. And then, of course, we did rewriting in the editing, but not really the heart of the film.

Kani as the mother Anila is great as she usually is but Preeti Panigrahi is a revelation as Mira. So is Kesav as Sri. How did you spot them?

We worked with Dilip Shankar who is a very senior casting director and a spiritual guide. He really understood the film. We knew we wanted to do a wide search, not just actors who had credits but put an open call out. As the auditions were rolling there were the 18- and 19-year-olds and there were the 20-, 21-, 22-year-olds. It was interesting that the 18- and 19-year-olds sometimes didn't understand the complexity of the script. There was a shift in maturity with the 20-, 21-year-olds, which I found quite interesting. So, the challenge was to find somebody who could embody the 16-year-old, 17-year-old, 12^th standard student. Also, Mira is a character who is wise beyond her years. Preeti has a kind of strength and maturity and dignity that we needed.

At the auditions there were all these very good actors who had credits who were hitting all the beats, but there wasn't a kind of aliveness. It felt like acting.

For Preeti’s audition we had the scene where Mira and Sri meet for the first time, and they talk. A lot of girls played it very coyly, batting their eyelids and a little bit shy. Preeti played it the way that I’d direct it—she’s the head, she has a certain strength and dignity and though she likes this boy, she's not going to bat her eyelids and be coy and debase herself. There's a dignity to her. When I saw Preeti, I really felt like she is Mira, she understood the spine of this character.

Kesav also came in through an open call. Sri is a very hard character, because he is supposed to be charismatic and charming, but likable and vulnerable. So, us as adults should not be able to see him and say, ‘Oh, stay away from that one. That one's a bad boy.’ You shouldn't feel that because otherwise, you'll never be on the journey that Mira is on, in which you fall for this boy. Kesav really has a niceness and likability and the charm and the vulnerability.

And when we put him and Preeti together, it was great. Both are such intelligent actors, having read the script so carefully. The film has some intimacy, but they came with very smart questions about the character and not about the intimacy which was unlike the other actors.

How did Richa and Ali come on board? She told me you are old friends…

Richa and I are old college friends. We went to Sophia’s Social Communications Media programme. While we were at SCM, we co-directed a documentary. That’s when I fell in love with filmmaking. A few years later I applied to the film school with my first, little, scripted film and Richa acted in it. It’s a 5-minute silly, little film. She had just done Oye Lucky, this was much before Gangs of Wasseypur. Then I went to the US for my MFA (Master of Fine Arts). Over the years we have remained friends. I have admired her work; she has followed mine. Her home was always my home when I went to India. I have stayed for weeks at her home in Mumbai. Richa has always been more than an actor. Not that there’s anything wrong in being an actor but she has also been a writer, a thinker, and has always wanted to produce. She read my script and wanted to produce it. I wasn't thinking of her as a producer, I just asked her to read it. She has been an amazing champion of the film. She understood it, protected it, and fought for me to have enough time to shoot.

But she didn’t think of doing Kani’s role?

No, neither of us ever saw her as that character. I think also for her first film, she just wanted to focus on producing and learning. She wants to produce stuff she believes in, not to have a role in it for herself.

You have evoked the 90s nostalgia…

I loved recreating the 90s and also the 90s are very important to me. It's not just a nostalgic thing. I came of age in the 90s and the world around us changed so rapidly. Suddenly you could walk in and buy a pair of jeans. We would buy miniskirts and shorts and these things became a way for us young girls to be rebellious, to wear these Western things. It was a time of such rapid change.  

I feel like what women are wearing is often indicative of morality in society. And I'd put morality in quotes. So that time when Mira is experiencing that, her mother wants to experience that too. And then of course, the other little details of like, not being able to text your boyfriend. You actually had to do these big, elaborate codes using a landline or find a place to meet and if you wanted to find out something you had to go to the internet cafe or look in an encyclopaedia. The cast and crew pulled out a lot of our 90s family photos and looked at all the fashions and the baggy jeans and the baggy T-shirts. That was really a fun part of the process.

What’s it like to have started at Sundance?

I'm delighted. We really mythologize Sundance in the US. It's the cinematic event of the year that everyone pays attention to. It's a place where so many independent filmmakers' careers are launched. It's a place where I've discovered so many films that I love.

I couldn't be happier. It's so exciting and surreal to be here. They give all the directors a Directors’ Jacket, a winter coat. And on the shuttle buses and street people are like, “Oh that jacket, that means you must have a film in the festival”.

That’s so lovely. A warm antidote to the snow and cold…

This is my first Sundance. It's very cold, but it's really special. There’s this energy and you can feel it. It’s like the city is transformed. Everyone is talking about films.

Are you planning to take it to other festivals before you think of a release? What's the plan?

I hope for it to travel to festivals and maybe come to a festival in India. I would like it to get a release. I think it is a film for a wide audience. I really feel like it's an accessible film that people can relate to.