Synopsis
 

“A girl’s life is cruel... A woman’s life is very cruel,” notes Sampat Pal, the complex protagonist at the center of Pink Saris, internationally acclaimed director Kim LONGINOTTO’s latest foray into the lives of extraordinary women. Sampat should know – like many others she was married as a young girl into a family which made her work hard and beat her often. But unusually, she fought back, leaving her in-laws and eventually becoming famous as a champion for beleaguered women.

Program Note
 

Certain times of a life, ‘Living as a Woman in Asia‘ means a struggle for life and death experience. Especially in India, where the Castes social system is still rampant in the present days, for the women in the lowest class, the words life and death acts as an allophone synonym instead of antonym. In Uttar Pradesh, Northern India, ‘Untouchable‘ women‘s lives are collateral of cultural liability for the male dominant society. Most of women are ‘sold‘ to a perfect stranger under the name of marriage against personal wills and they have to tolerate physical and sexual abuse from their husbands and his family as if it is a custom. A pregnancy before the marriage means honor killing. But for Sampat, ‘Untouchable‘ women in India, refuses the infinite circle of violence and forms a ‘Gulabi(pink) Gang‘ to stand against those horrific traditions of abuse against women. Kim LONGINOTTO, a director of the film, gazes at Sampat in Pink Saris as her armor and her raging arms in calm and patient ways while she protests alone. When the movie starts to feel as if to only tell a story of a heroic political activist with a charismatic movement against violence, the story turns into an ordinary human being in a struggle when she sits down in front of the camera with tears in her eyes. She talks about living on the edge of the blade, as she has to face the pain and struggles to be an activist while she helps other women in same situations. With this scene, Pink Sari is no longer a lofty heroic saga but instead becomes a story of down-to-earth real life story. As we watch the movie, we find ourselves mesmerized with the perpetual existence of the barbaric and transcendental violence against all women instead of feeling mere compassion for one activist and the humane side of her life. (LEE Hyuk-sang)