You can put all those doubts to rest finally. After seeing Daman there can be no doubts whatsoever that Raveena Tandon deserves that National Award every bit.
A superb performance, understated and powerful makes this film completely watchable. Marital rape is a subject that is hardly ever discussed in a public forum never mind on celluloid. It’s as though once married, anything that happens within a marriage is completely the concern of the two persons involved. It’s only when a battered wife appeals for help that, outsiders offer it. But a case like marital rape can be attested by only the two persons involved.
In Daman, Kalpana Lajmi takes the subject from within the confines of a bedroom and holds its ugliness up front. Of course like all good film-makers who also want the commercial aspects of the film to be covered, she has taken a saleable star like Raveena, but to be sure, the lady has lived up to her expectations. The story is about this young girl who gets married with stars in her eyes imagining a world that is as beautiful as some unknown paradise. Soon though her dreams are dashed to the ground as she realises the man she has married is an ogre in the real sense of the world. Perpetually disgruntled and furious, his view on everything in life is coloured. His relationship with his wife is the worst. He doesn’t ever make love to her, but he rapes her every time. Slowly Durga, (Raveena) becomes a shadow of her old self. She doesn’t protest because she has been brought up to believe that her husband is God but she does suffer through the years. Her only source of solace is her sensitive brother-in-law Sanjay Suri who empathises with her and also nurses a secret crush.
As time passes her daughter Raima Sen grows to be a 13 year old girl. Time for her demonic father to arrange for her marriage. This is the first time Durga protests and as she does not want history to repeat itself, the determined woman escapes from the home with her daughter. Of course the husband only finds her and brings her back.
The characters in the film are perhaps a little more sharply edged that required, often making the viewer wonder whether such people actually exist, but what is really appreciable is that Lajmi had the guts to make a film like this.