Women’s Zone:
Any woman who has been to a beauty parlour –salon, if it’s fancy—knows that when she enters, she leaves her inhibitions behind, and enters a female only universe, where she can be free for a short while, and not be judged for her physical defects, real or imaginary. She believes she will emerge with her face glowing, skin hairless, greys concealed, nails manicured, and, till the next appointment, she feels confident.
Over time, a tentative relationship develops between a customer and her preferred beautician or hair stylist. But how many care about the troubles of the woman who is plucking eyebrows, doing facials, waxing arms, or colouring hair, with a smile?
Sivaranjini’s Malayalam film, Victoria, is set in a small-town beauty parlour and shows a day in the life of the young woman, who works there. The film was made with a grant for female filmmakers by the Kerala State Film Development Corporation—a budget so tiny that the young filmmaker had to work with ingenuity and tell a story that appeals to the audience and has been winning awards at festivals.
The parlour is a microcosm of modern womanhood in Kerala/India, seen through the eyes of Victoria (played with grace and intensity by Meenakshi Jayan, who spent a month at a parlour to get her part right) and her interactions with the female customers. As she travels in a bus to her workplace, a woman she knows hands her a rooster, which is meant to be sacrificed at a religious ceremony later. Her protests are ignored by the woman, and she is forced to carry the rooster to the parlour, and place it in a corner, with its legs tied.
She is troubled, because she is in love with a Hindu man, to which her Christian parents are vehemently opposed. The mark of her father’s slap is still on her cheek, as she gets ready for work. Her boss, called away to her child’s school meeting, leaves Victoria to manage the parlour on her own. In between chatting with customers and doing the tasks they want her to, she has tearful conversations on the phone with her boyfriend, who is unsympathetic. At one point he tells her that his parents will never accept a girl from another religion, and that too, one who is a beautician. Her own father decides to get her married without asking for her consent. The men are not seen on screen, but their control over her is felt over phone conversations and her fear over her future. Education and financial independence have clearly not given Victoria a voice.
She smiles and goes about her laborious work, hiding her own emotional turmoil, with the rooster as a sort of silent witness. The claustrophobic space is still a cocoon of relief for the women who visit and a quiet camaraderie is shared among them. The woman who is due to travel abroad for the first time to visit her daughter, has come to get her hair coloured against her husband’s wishes. Later, the other women, who she has met in the parlour, decide to accompany her to a shop to buy salwar-kameez for a comfortable journey, a dress her conservative husband does not allow her to wear.
A brick layer comes by for an occasional facial, because she believes a woman’s appearance gets her respect. Another chatty woman, sneaks in to get a beauty treatment for her brother’s impending wedding, when her father-in-law is on his deathbed in hospital. She hopes he will die after the wedding. A spirited bunch of school girls arrives to get their eyebrows plucked. Victoria is able to break down only in front of her pregnant friend who has come for a pedicure, and matter-of-factly talks about her husband who never offers to massage her swollen feet. She has got the social sanction of marriage, but resents having to ask her husband’s permission for every little thing.
Sivaranjini had actually seen a rooster in a parlour, and the idea of the film struck her then. The rooster has been interpreted as the ubiquitous male gaze. It demands attention, expects to be fed and petted, and leaves a mess—much like the average Indian male. The writer-director links the bird to the religious ritual that is to be conducted, at which the rooster will be sacrificed and eventually end up in a cooking pot. However, its presence, she explains, serves as a spiritual guide for Victoria, who, by the end of the film, has acquired clarity in her mind, about how she will cope with the difficult situation she is in.
The film is made up of small, profound moments that lead to a woman’s self-awareness and could result in her freedom. One doesn’t know if Victoria will be able to resist her family and society or shrug off the burdens of expectations of obedience and subservience placed on her, but, at least, one hopes, she won’t give up without a fight.
(This piece first appeared in The Free Press Journal, dated October 11, 2025)
