After directing features films such as Dushman and Qarib Qarib Singlle and docu-feature Aunty Sudha Aunty Radha, Tanuja Chandra takes on a true crime docuseries. Wedding.con reveals the dark and complex world of matrimonial sites and digital fraud through the stories of five women who recount their real-life experiences. Where we have seen the satirical, beautiful, luxurious and aspirational side of Indian matchmaking and marriages, Wedding.con is a cautionary tale.
Director Chandra shares more about the Amazon Prime Video series. Edited excerpts:
Was it especially challenging to visually narrate this story given the nature of the crimes — online fraud, with the majority of the women duped by these ‘suitors’ choosing not to reveal their true identities?
Tanuja Chandra: Yes, and that is always the challenge with a documentary that is not observational, where there's lots to capture. Here the nature of the story is that these women are talking about something that's happened to them, and three of them are not even showing their faces, which means they really don't want to be identified. We had to really limit how much of their background we could show. Therefore, we really worked on the set we created. Also, these are wonderful women who live their lives completely and we didn't want it to look dark and dismal. I wanted it to look colourful, because their lives — or at least their aspirations — are colourful.
You have talking heads but you have also recreated the scenarios using actors.
Chandra: Yes. Documentary is always stretching its limits. I've seen some great documentaries where the recreation is done with such cinematic beauty that you're immediately immersed in that world. That is what we were trying to capture — that immersive quality that pulls you into their lives. We cast actors who resemble the real people, but I didn't want to show faces, because that takes away some of the mystery. That gave us a new visual language, which I was really excited by. We show half faces, or shoot them in shadows, show their backs or close up of hands. In one case, where the girl is on camera, we have shown the recreation from her point of view. I find in fiction, often the person who's trying to hide something is only revealing it all too clearly. Then I wonder: how come the person standing in front of them can't see the lie? So, we had to tell a good lie to the camera. The audience has to believe and say, he doesn't look like he will do this at all and then wonder ‘what happened’?
How did you persuade these women to reveal as much as they did?
Before I came onto the project, BBC Studios had already been researching this for quite a while. They actually spoke to many more women. Quite a few didn't want to speak because of the shame while many others considered doing it with their identities hidden, but their therapists advised them that it might be very triggering. I met the ones who agreed, conducted mock interviews, I spoke to them so that they would be comfortable with me. They're from various parts of the country and speak different languages. The youngest is only 25 and the oldest is 50-plus and their experiences, in terms of the cons, are very different. Ideally, one would like as many as possible, but even a series needs to sustain.
What was different about the two that agreed to be on camera? What gave them the courage or confidence to go on record?
All these women are totally undeserving of what they've gone through. Like many others, these women believe that this crime has to stop. The women featured in the series said they hope at least some women who watch Wedding.con will be cautioned, have the ability to read the signs and gauge a dishonest proposal. Sneha deeply wants justice. Sandhya’s courage is quite undefeatable. There are three women in her house and I guess that gives her a kind of strength to do this. We were very cognizant of why the others did not want to show their faces. They would be shamed because it is always the victim, especially a woman, who has to defend herself.
The themes within the show are beyond the crime. How would you describe the essence of the series?
It is not at all limited to matrimony or to matrimonial fraud. It goes way beyond that, in terms of how our culture prizes the institution of marriage. That pressure — that your life is incomplete if you haven't found a partner and settled down, even if you don't find love — is constant. Of course, it's completely human to want to want somebody to share your life journey with, but somehow you are made to feel incomplete, even if you're leading a perfectly alright life without romantic love. All the images we see, advertising, movies etc. around us, show experiences to be shared with a family, with a partner, with a lover. Then, when you kind of embrace somebody but make a mistake in judging that person — whether they're honest or dishonest — then the entire blame falls on your shoulders. Even our government agencies are our law, policing system and society is enabling this to happen in some way. I was sure to let them know that I'm 100 per cent in support of them, of whatever they went through. The perpetrator is a criminal, and in no way are the women complicit in that crime. So, the themes are large, the themes are centuries old. Women have been in darkness for centuries. It's not just now that this is happening. Earlier, there was a matchmaker who used to bring families together. Now, with digital and online platforms, you may feel you have more freedom but you also don't know who you're really speaking to. You are gullible and foolish, but you're so intelligent and have such a great job so how could you do this? These are things each of them has been told. They can still earn back the money lost, but their mental health, the trauma they've gone through, these are things they're going to be feeling for a long time.
As the director, how would you summarise the show?
It relates the accounts of women who've gone through these traumatic experiences of matrimonial fraud, and their journey after that. To me, it is also about their strength and absolute courage to come out from the other side of a huge fraud in which they have lost money, had their hearts broken, had their dignity taken away. So, I would say it's the story of extraordinary women.
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