Jayant Digambar Somalkar’s ‘Sthal’ is a look at the pressures and humiliations of arranged marriage through the girl’s eyes

Like ‘The Great Indian Kitchen’, this film shows us a patriarchal way of functioning we’ve always been aware of, but the girl’s POV makes the situations fresh and new. The rest of this review may contain spoilers.

A friend of mine said yes to the very first girl he met in an arranged-marriage situation, when the two families met and a decision had to be made by the boy’s family. His logic was that this very setup is a gamble, and there was no point seeing a whole bunch of women before making up his mind. Because the most horrible aspect of all this is that the girl becomes a commodity, and he did not want to go “shopping” for the best available option. I was reminded of this incident while watching Jayant Digambar Somalkar’s Sthal, which means “match”. This is a story told from the girl’s point of view, as one man after another arrives on a shopping expedition, as though moving from seller to seller in a vegetable market to buy the best and most cost-effective brinjals. Indeed, such a scene does occur late into this story.

You can read the rest of the review here:

https://www.galattaplus.com/jayant-digambar-somalkars-sthal-is-a-look-at-the-pressures-and-humiliations-of-arranged-marriage-through-the-girls-eyes/

You can watch the trailer / video review here:

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