Heartfelt Reflections: The Emotional Depth of Aama

 A father's goodness is higher than the mountain, a mother's goodness deeper than the sea.

                                                                              - Japanese Proverb

Every day nowadays we are hearing several incidents of exploitation by hospitals being reported continuously. Patients have to face a financial burden if they are admitted to the hospital. If hospitals are found to be exploiting patients, legal actions should be taken but Are these hospitals being really punished for exploitation? The true scenario of hospitals in Nepal and their behaviour towards patients is clearly shown in the movie "Aama".

Cast: Mithila Sharma, Surakshya Panta, Sarita Giri, Deshbhakta Khanal, Manish Niraula, Laxmi Bhusal, Tika Pahari, Padam Prasad Poudel, Aashant Sharma, Saroj Aryal

Director: Dipendra K. Khanal

Synopsis: 

Surakshya Panta stars as Aarti, a protagonist and lead character of the story, and Mithila Sharma as Aarti's mother. The story begins with Aarti's father being taken to a public hospital due to a serious head injury. Due to negligence in treatment, Aarti admits her father to a private hospital where the characters are exploited financially. Aarti is a working female married to a middle-class family but is taking care of both her parents and in-laws. Her brother is working abroad. After an expensive head surgery for her father, she starts facing mental and financial difficulties. On one hand, her in-laws are expecting a child from her, suggesting her husband marry another girl if she is infertile. On another hand, Her father died, and the hospital is not willing to give her father's dead body before collecting fees. She and her mother are left helpless with the dead body of her father in the morgue with no help from her brother. The dead body is rotted with a mouse squeaking around, left astray. 

Review:

The protagonist of this story 'Aarti' has done justice to the character by bringing feminism into the Nepalese patriarchal society. Her character shows the struggle of infertile women, and how they are humiliated by their own family members. She couldn't become a mother in a movie but she became a responsible and caring daughter to her parents. Her dialogues like  "I'll be a daughter first, then only will I become a mother", and "I'm his daughter ! A daughter can also perform the final ritual."  show feminism in words. In Hindu society, It is widely believed women aren't allowed to participate in funeral activities. As we speak of equality for girls, Aarti's answer seems satisfying.

Children are everything to parents. A parent's happiness lies in a child's smile. The proven artist "Mithila Sharma" as the mother of Aarti is hurt after knowing that her son, whom she and her husband had invested all their hopes, fails to come to perform the final rituals. Her words "Seems like our life is almost over along with hope ! Now I realize it seems like everything between one's birth and death is just an illusion." show her broken heart which has sacrificed all her wishes for her children's betterment.

The hospital charging a lot of fees in name of treatment of a patient, leaving dead bodies astray if financial fees are not met, how dead bodies are treated, people inspired to convert to religion showing false hope, rude behaviours of nurses, and mistreated for being infertile; a true scenario of Today's Nepalese society is clearly shown in the movie. Thus, this movie is a reality check on Nepal.

The characters are built widely in this movie. Though the title character  'Aama' is apparently played by Sharma, Panta is the lead actor with her natural acting in her emotionally-turbulent role. Aama is a rare movie that succeeds on almost every level to show emotional attachment with family, feminism, and the background of Nepalese real society where each character, scene, costume, and background fires on all cylinders to make a film repeated viewings.

Flaws and Weakness:

The movie revolves around the walls of the hospital only. It would be better if the movie could capture other areas too. Overall movie is good in direction, script, and cinematography.

The best I like about the movie is a satire on all Nepalese who think that sons are the only responsible member of the family. Though Aarti's grandmother-in-law keeps on taunting her to have a son, the grandmother herself is left alone by her son. On the other hand, Aarti's parents who had invested all their money in their son, don't even attend their last funeral. All responsibilities of dead rituals were carried by their daughter who might have felt that there is no need for a child if they could be like her brother. Parents give birth to their children and spend all their incomes on them by sacrificing all their wishes and when parents are in need, their children are in their own world.