Marriage Cops is an amazing Hindi documentary that is only 80 minutes long. It is a fascinating look into the Women’s Helpline in Dehradun, India, and the officers who do their best to keep peace in marriages on the brink of collapse.
Marriage Cops
Marriage Cops, directed by Shashwati Talukdar and Cheryl Hess, was an unexpected joy. The India/US film participants speak Hindi, but the English subtitles will keep you caught up on the conversations. The film follows Inspectors Sandhya and Krishna, who, with the help of their coworkers, try to keep peace and civility between the couples coming to them with their marriage problems. This is a nearly impossible task as the women seeking help are dealing with abusive spouses and hostile in-laws.
Marriage Cops focuses on couples who are seeking a divorce. The officers are overworked and understaffed. The stacks and stacks of file folders shoved on shelves behind the small desks of the officers are a testament to the dedication and patience of the Women’s Helpline. The people coming in for help distrust the officers because the police are generally feared and avoided, as they are looked on as agents of the state. The husbands are usually argumentative until they realize that Sandhya and Krishna are trying to help the men, and their wives work out their differences.
Not all cases are successful, and a divorce will be granted. I immediately liked Sandhya and Krishna because, although they each have their own unique way of solving problems and are both experts at sniffing out the troublemaker, they both have their clients’ best interests in mind. When a case fails, these officers are as disappointed as the families.
Marriage Cops is represented by Met Film, which is part of the Arts Alliance group of companies, which also includes Garden Studios and Park Circus.
And now an interview with directors Shashwati Talukdar and Cheryl Hess.
Gilbert: I absolutely loved this film. What was the inspiration to do Marriage Cops? What made this particularly painful subject important enough to do a documentary?
Shashwati Talukdar: I had previously worked on a film about a theatre group from a Denotified Tribe, that is, communities who are considered “Criminal by Birth” according to a Colonial era law from 1871, who are subject to a great deal of discrimination and brutality even today. The police system has a big presence in their lives, history and circumstances. So I was always interested in the Police system in India. Second, there had been horrendous cases of violence against women, leading to widespread protests in India, and of course the #MeToo movement. Marriage Cops brought together all of these areas of interest for me, in the form of the larger question, “What did the presence of the state look like in our private lives?”
Cheryl Hess: The most fascinating part about the Women’s Helpline is the way in which the women who came there were able to leverage the power of the state for their own benefit. When you have you few tools at your disposal you use what is available to you. In this case it was the police. After spending some time there on our research trip Shashwati and I realized that the Helpline was a “weapon of the weak”: At first glance it appears that the police are not accomplishing much but when you look more closely you see that women are able to get their immediate needs met. In the case of one of our participants she just needs cash so she can take care of her child. The police are able to coerce her husband into getting a job by threatening to call her husband’s mother if he refuses to support his child. It’s also important to point out that although our film deals with difficult subject matter we were able to temper that with moments of humor.
Gilbert: Do you feel that the officers and the clients who sought their help were hindered at all because they were being filmed? Has this documentary encouraged more people to seek help from the Women’s Helpline?
Shashwati Talukdar: While our subjects were aware of the camera, they also had a job to do and lives to live. And once it was clear we were going to be respectful of their space and comfort zone for revelation, they went on with their lives. The Helpline is immensely popular, and the film doesn’t change that either way. People need this service.
Cheryl Hess: We weren’t able to film any of the counselling sessions without the signed consent from both parties. It was quite challenging to get consent, and many couples said no. We were very careful to make sure that people understood the nature of our project, that we were making a documentary film about the Helpline and were in no way affiliated with the police. As for the police, they have a job to do, and the cameras seemed to make little difference. The documentary hasn’t been released yet and hasn’t been screened in Dehradun, although we plan to have a public screening there. Will it encourage people to go to the Helpline? Who knows? It’s already popular with hundreds of new cases every year.
Gilbert: Of all the films that you have worked on, which was the hardest on an emotional scale?
Shashwati Talukdar: I would have to say Marriage Cops. There are so many people dealing with so much pain and despair, whether in their personal lives or in their professional capacity as policewomen. Yet they get up in the morning and carry on. I truly admire that.
Cheryl Hess: As a DP I’ve worked on projects with some pretty heavy subject matter. I don’t really rank them on a difficulty scale. Suffering is always a difficult thing to film and it takes real effort to remain sensitive, compassionate, respectful and present.
Gilbert: What are you working on now?
Shashwati Talukdar: I am working on a fiction feature film that combines my love of theatre and documentary called ‘Captain Tony.’
Cheryl Hess: Now that Marriage Cops is out in the world, my goal is to tend to my garden of unfinished projects before I start anything new. But the truth is, I can’t really help myself. I am currently trying to raise funds for a documentary hybrid stop-motion short. The animator whom I hope to work with loves the idea, and he has decades of experience. Fingers crossed that I will be able to get this one made