It is the day of the wedding and a newly married Kajal and Qader come to Kajal’s home to continue with the festivities. Family and friends greet the couple and wish them a happy life ahead. The new bride is apprehensive about what is happening next. As the couple proceed to consummate the marriage, the household is in for a shock. They hear a commotion from the bedroom and see an exasperated Qader come fuming out of the marital chamber. He accuses the family of the bride of cheating him. He questions the morals of his bride and storms out of the house even as the bride’s family begs him to listen to reason. How did things go wrong? What conspired between the newlywed couple that made Qader lose his temper?
‘Blood’ is a Narrative short film by Director Sahar mirzaeianfar. Sahar draws our focus to a particular regressive practice that accepts the drawing of blood as a sign of the girl’s virginity. In a society where conversations about sex are taboo and uncomfortable, it is practices like these that puts the onus on women to prove their chastity to their husbands. A twice married man takes offence at the fact that his wife does not bleed on her nuptial night and accuses the bride’s family of cheating him. The hapless bride does not even get the support of her own family members and her father accuses her just like her husband. ‘Blood’ captures the different emotions that each member of the family goes through and how the crisis brings forth their underlying misogynistic tendencies when it is time to choose. Immersive camera angles take one into the thick of the action and do not miss out the feeling of being in the action’s thick.
‘Blood’ looks at a particular custom related with marriages in some communities that lay a great importance on the chastity of women before marriage. These unscientific practices are often unreliable and lead to misunderstandings and destruction of marriages even before they begin.
