Lipstick Under My Burkha: Alankrita Shrivastava’s Celebration of Female Desire Survives a Ban, Opens in India

MM: Could you talk about your collaboration with your cinematographer and costume designer? Wardrobe played a nuanced yet important role in the film.

AS: Akshay Singh, who does a lot of advertising work and documentaries, shot the film. And he shot my first feature. So we have an old collaboration. He’s done a good job of not making the camera intrusive. You don’t think during the film, “Oh, this is a great shot.” He doesn’t have the need to show off. The whole idea was to capture people just as they are. There are very few track and trolley [dolly] shots. Mostly the camera was handheld, a breathing camera. We used the Alexa. We also decided we were not going to beautify the characters. You just feel their suffocation and their realness. For instance, we constantly used the wide lens up close rather than using a lens from far to get a close-up, which creates a pretty effect.

Rohit Chaturvedi did the costumes. He shopped for the clothes in Bhopal itself. He went to the local Bhopal market and bought all the fabrics.

MM: The swimming costume and the boots were the two items that were important from a story point of view. Can you talk about those?

AS: Those we got from Bombay. Some of Rehana’s [Plabita’s character] clothes we got from Bombay. Other clothes were stitched. We had to get boots that were cool but were not that cool. Rohit worked really hard to get the exact brief. Aahana’s character can’t wear western clothes, but she tries to be really cool in her salwar and churidaar kurta.

MM: The film does a great job at portraying women from the framework of intersectionality, which is the idea that oppression is not simply the result of one social category, such as gender or class. Rather, it’s the result of gender, class, sexuality, age, caste and religion—all these categories and social constructs jointly decide the fate and agency of the characters.

AS: I think you’re right. For instance, I feel Usha’s character would have been very different if her religion was different, because in Hinduism the stigma attached to being a widow is far sharper. And somebody from a different class may not have the same issues. I don’t think I planned it like that. It just emerged that these characters were of different ages, religions.

The only thing I did want was to delve into the stories and lives of women who were not as privileged in terms of class as me. I did feel that would bring out some more nuanced issues. Having said that, I am a feminist completely; it’s in my pulse. I don’t have to plan how much feminism is going to show up in my work. I feel like the politics of who I am always comes through.

MM: My last question is about masculinity. What do you think of the men in this film?

AS: I feel the men are as much the victims of patriarchy. They are acting out of what they know best. I don’t think any of them is an evil person, including the character of Konkana’s husband. He is awful but he doesn’t even realize it. They are doing what they are doing without thinking about it.

MM: I love that you are inverting the concept of male gaze very clearly in this film. For instance, the character of Usha desires the younger swimming coach character and we see his body only via her admiring eyes. 

AS: I think the female gaze is my pet thing. There are so many films made about women, but I feel that they don’t necessarily have a female gaze. I also feel that there are a lot of films made by women and even their gaze is male. MM

Lipstick Under My Burkha opens in theaters in India July 21, 2017.

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