DN:FILM Brave Girls
“I’ve never worn jeans. It’s my dream to wear jeans while driving a car. That would make me so happy,” says teenager Apsana. “But it will never happen.” One of three teens profiled in BRAVE GIRLS, Ellie Walton and Yashaswi Desai’s sensitive, thematically rich film, Apsana and her co-stars fight to become agents of independence and liberation, breaking from the institutionalized misogyny and oppression of India’s hidebound patriarchy.
Apsana, Karishma and Samira want to finish high school, choose their own husbands and work jobs outside the house. These are heady desires when, at 18, young women are ritually hitched in arranged marriages, becoming housekeeping captives to husband, children and in-laws. Deviation from this narrative is a recipe for scandal and disgrace. “Our lives are ruled by the fear of losing our honor, honor, honor,” complains Karishma, who elopes with the man she loves, resulting in the loss of contact with her family for nearly three years. When Apsana is lassoed into an arranged marriage, she drinks poison. She survives, breaks the arrangement and marries the man of her choosing—and becomes an instant pariah.
In an affecting 68 minutes, “Brave Girls” covers three years in the young women’s lives, which are charged by a collective yearning for true love, freedom and respect. “We must have the courage to visibly step out of our homes and be seen in our communities as we move forward,” says Samira. Eventually we see Apsana, beaming, married with children, explaining how she attained the best of both worlds: love and independence. “Do you wear jeans?” a friend asks. “I wear whatever I want,” Apsana replies.
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