Godam (1983)

A tragic story about a woman’s relentless suffering in an isolated village. Yesu (Trupti) is a child bride married to the retarded son of a lecherous old man who threatens to rape her. She kills the old man and hides in a disused warehouse where she is protected but sexually exploited by the caretaker Edekar (Raina) and his helper Dharma (Dubey). One morning, Edekar opens the warehouse to find Yesu has hanged herself. Almost the entire film is set in the abandoned warehouse, atop an isolated and rocky hill, intended to provide a hallucinatory, mystical experience. The hyperactive camera, with montage cut-outs of Queen Victoria and the monkey god Hanuman, and soundtrack, where Sharatchandra Arolkar’s music jostles with John Coltrane, presents an excess that contrasts with the spartan setting. Noted Marathi poet Chitre’s only feature.