a review of
Movie · Review
Aurat Raj (1979)Oh wow I never reviewed this. So a friend's artist collective was doing a screening of this to talk about it through a trans lens, but she said after watching it she had no idea how to frame it, and sent me a copy. "I just need to talk about this movie with someone" This thing is the most wild fever dream psychedelic genderswap thing, and it has actual khawaja sira people in it and they sing a song about how they should have been put in charge instead! A force feminizing/masculinizing smoke bomb is set and then everyone's voices are reversed via the power of dubbing. Most of the gender bending is done via hats. Who could have thought of this? Why Rangila of course. It's definitely an idea of what things would be like if women were in charge, from the perspective of the male writer. From a filmmaking standpoint, a lot of found footage is used of varying quality, and often two characters will be talking to each other but I swear they are filmed in different places at different times. There is one scene where half of it is taking place outside and half inside, but they are supposed to be in the same place. But wow. My friend explained a lot of the actors and songs to me, as references to other films. So it would be enriched if you knew that, but I think is still worth checking out if not.