This short (Malayalam) film – Memories of a Machine – is creating ripples on the internet and received a great response at the Bangalore Queer Film Festival. But does it inadvertently endorses Child Sexual Abuse?
What is the Movie About?
In Memories of a Machine, a woman narrates her early sexual experience as a curious young girl and her quirky struggles in discovering “self” amid the traditionally bound system.
In the movie, a woman narrates her first sexual experience to her husband. She explains that she was eight years old when she was touched on the vagina by an attendant in school, and when her husband asks whether she thinks that it was wrong, she says: “I don’t want to say ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ but it’s not wrong.” Because it was reciprocated — she enjoyed being touched and the man stopped when she asked him to.
A Controversy in the Making?
The film has already generated a lot of curiosity on the internet (gone viral). The short film also received a great response at the Bangalore Queer Film Festival this year.
However, there are many who’re heavily criticizing the movie as it seems to be ‘normalising child abuse’, and seems to pardons paedophilia (the movie even has a dialogue where the man tells the woman, “Don’t tell this to a paedophile”).
Many are suggesting that the short film be taken off YouTube immediately.
Watch: Memories of a Machine
The Malayalam short film is directed by Shailaja Padindala and features actress Kani Kusruti. The director obviously doesn’t agree that the film romanticises or condones child abuse.
