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Uniform change

From 'Mardaani' to 'Fargo', films featuring the exploits of female police officers

Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in ‘Fargo’Premium
Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in ‘Fargo’

There aren’t too many female cops or investigators in the movies and the reasons are baby-simple. It’s a reflection of society, where men in general outnumber women in the workplace. Women rely on emotions rather than their brains, and hence make better victims than investigators (a splayed female body is always more appealing than a male one). Men—and women—in the audience don’t care for the exploits of female police officers; a cop who is a woman is distracting even as an idea. Besides, some of the cops tend to empathize too strongly with their male targets—it’s the whole left-brain, right-brain thing.

Hence the title of Pradeep Sarkar’s Mardaani, featuring Rani Mukerji as a cop who must excavate her masculine side in order to get noticed.

Fargo

The most accomplished movie by the Coen brothers, and with a memorable central performance by Frances McDormand, this one upturns many stereotypes on its head. Not only is Marge Gunderson a woman, she is also heavily pregnant. She initially seems like a strange-talking and provincial-minded cop, but she soon makes the connection between a kidnapping and a series of increasingly brutal killings and nabs the killers all by herself. Marge is observant, dedicated and despite the “load" that she is carrying, remarkably fleet-footed.

Ek Hasina Thi

Sriram Raghavan’s debut feature is a hard-boiled thriller featuring the quivering-lipped Urmila Matondkar as a travel agency employee tricked into a prison term by Saif Ali Khan’s suave and heartless gangster. Matondkar’s character comes back for revenge, and she is tracked closely by Seema Biswas’ Maharashtra police officer. Perfectly cast, with the right amount of meanness and street-smart intelligence, Biswas is far more convincing than Sushmita Sen in Samay, a Friday-dressing cop with dubious diction who figures out that a serial killer is picking victims according to the extent of their short-sightedness.

The Silence Of The Lambs

Transformation is a key theme in Jonathan Demme’s superb and richly atmospheric adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel. And there is the serial killer, who kidnaps and removes the skins of his female victims in order to become a woman. And there is Clarice Starling, the Federal Bureau of Investigation trainee who overcomes personal nightmares and professional hurdles to track down the killer. Jodie Foster’s superb on-the-edge performance, which maps her character’s journey from nervousness to confidence, easily eclipses the Grand Guignol flourishes of Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter.

Mardaani released in theatres on Friday.

This fortnightly column looks at news through the prism of cinema.

Also Read | Nandini’s previous Lounge columns

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Published: 23 Aug 2014, 12:26 AM IST
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