Storyline
Shanichari is a beautiful girl born in lower cast and her life is full of sufferings because of lower cast, poor finances, lost parents, drunken husband, mischievous son. The title refers to a custom in some parts of Rajasthan—where aristocratic women were long kept secluded and veiled—of hiring professional women mourners on the death of a male relative, a rudaali (pronounced “roo-dah-lee”—literally, a female “weeper”) to publicly express the grief that family members, constrained by their high social status, were not permitted to display—or at times, perhaps did not feel. Underwritten by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) and Doordarshan (Indian national television) and based on a short story by famed Bengali author Mahasweta Devi—whose tales often focus on the travails of low-caste women.
Cast & Crew
Dimple Kapadia
Shanichari
Lead
Rakhee Gulzar
Bhikni
Raj Babbar
Thakur
Raghubir Yadav
Budhwa
Sushmita Mukherjee
Mungri
Amjad Khan
Thakur Ramavtar Singh
Ravi Jhankal
—
Suneel Sinha
—
What People Are Saying
3.0
“A staggering achievement of craft and ambition. Kalpana Lajmi's vision lands with breathtaking precision.”
3.0
“Every frame feels alive. Rudaali is the rare release that takes its audience seriously.”
