‘Burqa’ movie review: An intriguing conversation drama on religion and repression

A still from ‘Burqa’ 
| Photo Credit: @thinkmusicofficial/YouTube

Religion, like all social-cultural systems, has its own unique sets of benefits and drawbacks. As our elders have preached, there’s good and bad in everything, and religion — or any social construct for that matter — isn’t an exception. This dichotomy forms the base of Sarjun KM’s Burqa which is a compelling conversation drama starring Kalaiyarasan and Mirnaa.

Without mentioning the year, the film starts with a slide explaining that it’s December in Chennai and owing to communal riots, the city is under a curfew. A physically-injured Surya (Kalaiyarasan) ends up finding haven at the house of the emotionally-hurt Najma (Mirnaa). So begin the differences that are both drastic and dramatic. Surya, as the name denotes, is the sun, while Najma is Urdu for star. One’s a staunch Muslim who has religiously followed the tenets of her religion while the other is an atheist who finds peace in chaos. He’s wanted by the cops and his friends care to know if he’s safe, but on the other hand, no one cares to even check up on her. Surya is so liberated that he can partake in a riot, while Najma is bound within the walls of her house because of Iddat, a period of chastity after a Muslim woman’s marriage is annulled by either a divorce or the death of her husband. It’s apparently to ascertain whether the woman is pregnant and to acknowledge the certainty of paternity. While Najma (a medic by profession) alleviates his injury, the rest of the film answers whether Surya tends to the bruises in her heart over back-and-forth conversations.

For two such characters from different ends of all possible spectrums to find common ground through dialogue is Burqa at its core. Those conversations turn into a heated debate with us having to multi-task as both the audience and the judge. The film starts with a quote from author Angie Weiland-Crosby that goes, “The wind breathes lonely, longing to be seen. Sometimes, the soul has days like these.” Najma’s heart, a barren land for years, on the arrival of a stranger to her doorstep, is suddenly the scene of a war between her heart and her mind. Moulded by generations of tradition which she finds difficult to denounce — and animated by the breath of fresh air that promises the world — she’s stuck like a bookmark between the pages of the preachings from her holy book, in which she often finds solace.

A still from ‘Burqa’ 
| Photo Credit:
@thinkmusicofficial/YouTube

The change in tones and the intensity of fieriness in the words exchanged between them, though not exactly coherent, break the monotony of Burqa which could’ve easily slid into the ‘this meeting could’ve been an e-mail’ category. What intrigues the most is how the film suggests alternatives, but never throws a solution. It barely scratches the surface of commenting on the effect of religion and its interpretations, or — in some cases — misinterpretations, but never takes a dig at how it subjugates women. It doesn’t even give us the space to complain of mansplaining.

When Najma brings out the ultimate weapon of how can a man understand what a woman is going through, Surya retorts with the story of his mother who has also been suppressed and pushed into a corner, albeit in a different manner. He retaliates by asking her if her husband would’ve confined himself had she died; though she points out how a man cannot conceive, she knows that the idea of reformation has been planted in her. What Najma finds as forward-thinking — her father (GM Kumar) being “modern” enough to let her study and late husband Anwar (Suriyanarayanan) “allowing” her to wear T-shirts on vacation — Surya finds to be frivolous.

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The way the film is treated from a technical standpoint also works in its favour. Despite almost the entire narrative revolving around a day’s happening within the four walls of Najma’s house, the cinematography by G Balamurugan and music by Sivatmikha aid in keeping claustrophobia at bay. The shots of sunlight piercing through the crevices of the old yet elegant house to cast light over Najma feel ethereal when we consider the names of our leads.

Apart from a couple of scenes featuring Najma’s family members, it’s predominantly a two-person show, and both Mirnaa and Kalaiyarasan do a fine job with their subtle yet strong performances that are layered and realistic. It’s that camaraderie the two characters end up sharing that makes them fall in love with each other, despite Najma not knowing anything more than what Suriya has revealed about himself; meanwhile, Suriya has only seen her eyes through the cut-out of her burqa.

On the downside, while the dialogue and the points Burqa tries to raise are commendable, the constant shift in tone and jump from one topic to another doesn’t feel organic always. While the film establishes that Najma is a young widow who barely knows her dead husband and Suriya is a young man with a troubled backstory, the narrative doesn’t really give enough material for it to be convincing that the two have fallen for each other.

If Pagglait tried to milk humour out of a woman trying to grieve for a dead husband she barely knew, Burqa takes a more realistic and emotional approach to the same, digging deeper into the psyche of a young woman grieving for someone she has no feelings for. This is why the final shot, related to the film’s title, feels like an accomplishment to the duo despite us not knowing what happened to them after that. Speaking of which, wonder what will happen to our society when we stop caring about the choices people make about their own lives? Progress, probably.

Burqa is currently streaming on Aha