POSITIVE REVIEWS

POST THE #METOO MOVEMENT, THIS IS ONE OF THE FIRST HINDI

FILMS TO ADDRESS SEXUAL ASSAULT BY POWERFUL MEN IN THE
FILM INDUSTRY AND IT TAKES THE ROUTE OF FEATURING A FALSE
RAPE ACCUSATION.

 Most films hinge on a central conflict, but in Section 375, directed by Ajay Bahl,
the conflict is the story.
 gives you, even this time, ample evidence to trust his conviction. Section
375 doesn’t demonise or deify Anjali or Rohan; it is similarly tight-lipped about
Tarun and Hiral.
 There are scenes that demonstrate Bahl’s attention to detail. Before Rahul is
arrested on the film set, his wife, Kainaz (Shriswara), is explaining the movie’s
title’s typeface to her assistant – something to do with “feminine imagery”, she
says, which also symbolises “caged”.
 Before Anjali is grilled at the police station, the cop asks her, “Consent hai?” She
looks up alarmed (so do we) only to find out that the query was in reference to
her being questioned. And right after, the police officer interrogates her in
harrowing detail; she looks traumatised, the film empathises with her pain.
Elsewhere, Section 375 references trigger warnings, the traumas of recounting
sexual abuse – crucial sensitivities that escape most Bollywood films. Soon,
Tarun’s wife (Sandhya Mridul) tells him, while serving him food, that, “It’s the
wife I feel bad for” and adds “it’s not correct to defend him [Rohan] in these
times”.
 These depictions, of course, lie on a spectrum but, as evidenced by its
climax, Section 375 has little respect for nuance or real-life reverberations.
 It shuts itself up in a sound-proof room and calls the entire world deaf.

NEGATIVE REVIEW
 The filmmakers have grossly misrepresented anti-sexual assault protests in ‘section
375’, portraying them as real-life militant lynch mobs after blood, rather than the
genuine and honestly harmless, primarily online activism, that they really are.
 The filmmakers have grossly misrepresented anti-sexual assault protests in ‘section
375’, portraying them as real-life militant lynch mobs after blood, rather than the
genuine and honestly harmless, primarily online activism, that they really are.