Malefemale

The title of the film establishes a binary that would come to define its core underpinnings. When a philosophy graduate finds himself unemployed, while his wife becomes the earning member of their household, he grapples with a sense of emasculation that threatens to acquire staggering proportions. The narrative does a notable job of portraying the oppressiveness of a relationship where your object of love also becomes the object of resentment. The film noir aesthetic further allows the visuals to aptly represent these grey territories one might find themselves confined to.

The single-room setting acquires a stage-like quality, allowing the drama to unfold in a controlled, but organic manner. Piles of philosophy books, their titles telling their own stories, lie mixed with images of women on cardboard boxes. Like relics of a life that once was - a wedding picture, a stuffed toy, little objects are strewn in the entire space to give the viewer a glimpse into a union that was once marked by love.

As much as the film is about a seemingly endless battle between a husband and wife, it is also about one between two genders at war with each other in a patriarchal set-up controlled by its rigid ideas of what defines male and female. Additionally, there is the attempt to bring to life a world of books which has deemed the man unfit for the practical world his wife exhibits. Consequently, any query that she may raise is answered in the words of a philosopher, politician or scientist. And lastly, the closing thought the film leaves you with is about the unbreakability of a toxic equation. This situation of extreme discord and violence is perhaps an oft-repeated one for the couple, and yet, they refuse to let go of their relationship. However, within the folds of this specific evening rests a possibility of hope for the characters, and maybe a sense of hope for the warring factions of gender as well as society.