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When I read that Vishal Bhardwaj is planning a Rashomon-like film on the Tarun Tejpal rape case, I was intrigued. Bhardwaj is a filmmaker I admire, and his 2015 film Talvar showed how effectively he can tell a complicated real-life story through conflicting perspectives.
But the more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I became.
Is a rape case really a Rashomon story? And now that the Bombay High Court has convicted Tejpal and sentenced him to 10 years, do we need to revisit this case on screen?
For context, Rashomon (1950) is a classic Japanese film directed by the acclaimed Akira Kurosawa, in which the murder of a samurai is depicted from the perspectives of different characters, altering the truth with each retelling.
I can understand why the Tejpal case interests a filmmaker. There are two very different accounts of what happened in that hotel lift–the survivor's account and Tejpal's denial. Then came the trial court's acquittal and, years later, the Bombay High Court's decision to overturn it.
What makes the case particularly interesting is that the two courts arrived at very different conclusions. Bhardwaj has reportedly said that this contradiction is what makes the case suited to a Rashomon-style treatment.
I can see the attraction. How can the same evidence lead two courts to such different conclusions? What does that tell us about the way evidence is interpreted? But I keep wondering whether a sexual assault case is the right example to explore that question through competing cinematic perspectives.
Rashomon works because we are never quite sure which version of an event is true. Each person sees it through their own eyes. Memory is unreliable. People interpret things differently.
With sexual assault, I am not so sure.
A director does not simply present a situation from two perspectives. Through cinematic cues, he can also influence the way we see it. The way an actor says something, the expression on their face, the music in the background, even the moment at which a scene is shown can create a narrative that may be very different from what actually happened.
And that is what worries me.
Tejpal has now been convicted of rape. He may appeal the judgment, but the latest ruling by the Bombay High Court has found him guilty and sentenced him to 10 years' imprisonment. There may be different ways of experiencing, remembering or interpreting what happened, and courts may differ in how they assess the evidence. But that does not mean that a filmmaker has to present the two personal accounts as two equal truths.
And in a case of sexual assault that has resulted in a conviction, presenting the two perspectives and experiences as two equal truths could undermine the survivor's credibility and, perhaps unintentionally, generate sympathy for the perpetrator.
The Tejpal case is a particularly uncomfortable example.
A great deal of attention was paid to what the survivor did after the assault. Her messages were examined. Her subsequent interactions with Tejpal were examined. Her decision to continue working was examined. Her behaviour was measured against what people apparently believed a ‘rape victim should do’.
But people don't necessarily behave in ways that make sense to others after a traumatic experience.
A woman may continue talking to the person who assaulted her. She may go to work the next day. She may try to behave normally. She may be confused about what happened. She may even question herself.
None of that necessarily tells us whether she was assaulted.
The Bombay High Court's judgment has made this even more significant. In overturning the acquittal, the court rejected the idea that there is some prescribed way in which a survivor should behave.
So I keep coming back to the question: what happens when all those disputed details are recreated on screen?
In a newspaper report, a message is a message. In a courtroom, it is evidence to be examined. But in a film, it can become a dramatic clue.
A pause, a look, a change in expression, the camera lingering on someone's face. And then we see the same moment again, from his perspective. Something that may have gone unnoticed in real life can suddenly acquire a meaning because of the way it is presented on screen.
That is where the Rashomon technique worries me.
If Bhardwaj wants to examine how two courts could arrive at such different conclusions, that is a fair project. But examining two different court judgments is not the same as presenting the survivor's and the accused's accounts as two equally valid truths.
There is something else I cannot ignore. Who is telling these stories?
Most of the people who decide what we see on screen, what we hear and whose inner world we enter have traditionally been men. That does not mean a man cannot tell a woman's story. But it does make me wonder about the perspective from which a woman's experience of sexual violence is being reconstructed.
The director decides whose face we see. The screenplay decides whose inner life we enter. The camera decides when we linger on someone and when we move away.
A pertinent question here is whether the film could end up making the accused the more interesting human being, considering his credentials.
Could we come away understanding his vulnerabilities, his motivations and his version of events while the survivor remains primarily the woman whose credibility we have been asked to assess?
That thought troubles me.
I don't think this means that Bhardwaj's film would necessarily be sympathetic to Tejpal. It may be trying to do something much more complex. But films can have effects that go beyond what a filmmaker intends. And there is a larger conversation into which such a film could easily get pulled.
There are already men’s rights voices arguing that false rape complaints and misuse of the law are becoming a serious problem, and that men are increasingly being ‘victimised’ by women. I worry about what happens if a film like this becomes part of a larger narrative in which the focus shifts from a woman's right to consent, choice and agency to the damage suffered by the man accused of violating those rights.
Suddenly, the question is no longer what happened to the woman. It becomes what the accusation did to the man. That would be a very different conversation. Whatever the intention of a filmmaker, once a film is released, he cannot control how audiences interpret it or what arguments they use it to support.
Which brings me back to my first question: now that the High Court has pronounced its judgment, why does this story need to be told on screen?
I don't think real-life rape cases should be beyond cinema. Films can make us confront things we would rather forget. They can expose institutional failures and force uncomfortable conversations. But there is a difference between telling a story because it needs to be told and telling it because it makes compelling cinema.
The woman at the centre of the Tejpal case has already had to live through the scrutiny of the police, the courtroom, the media and the public. Her behaviour, her messages, her relationships and her credibility have all been examined. Does she need to go through another round of that scrutiny on a cinema screen?
I don't know what Bhardwaj's film will finally say. And perhaps it is unfair to judge a film before it has been made. But if it is made, I would hope that it leaves us questioning the assumptions we make about women after sexual assault, the way institutions interpret their behaviour, and the power structures that decide whose version of a story gets heard.
Not simply questioning whether the survivor is telling the truth. And that is what I would be thinking about if this film is made.
Not whether Bhardwaj is right or wrong to use the Rashomon format. But whether, in trying to show us competing perspectives, the film is putting the survivor on trial all over again.
Sharada AL is the Director of Population First, a non-profit organisation focused on population and gender issues. She is the founder of Laadli, a premier advocacy initiative and media campaign designed to promote gender sensitivity in journalism and advertising.
Views expressed are the author's own.
