Pink

Pink (2016) became more than a courtroom film in India, because of a single sentence in its closing argument. Three women share a flat in Delhi. One night, after a concert, they go to dinner with men they have just met. Minal is assaulted there, defends herself with a bottle, and injures the man's eye. The men come from influential families. They do not go to the police; they file attempted murder charges against her. Throughout the trial it is the women who occupy the dock. The prosecution does not examine the crime but their lives: what they were wearing, what they had drunk, why they were out late, why they got into a car with men they did not know. What the film does is dismantle those questions one at a time. The closing argument by the lawyer played by Amitabh Bachchan is built on consent and arrives here: if a woman says no, it is no, no explanation is required, and it does not matter who she is or what she has done. That sentence travelled well beyond the film in India and was quoted in the consent debate for years. Bachchan was seventy four and plays the part without any display. It was remade in Telugu as Vakeel Saab. It runs 136 minutes. Good for: courtroom drama, social thrillers, and Indian cinema. Less good for: sexual assault and harassment are the central subject, the cross examination scenes are distressing, and the film is long.