My Movie Review: Dangal

I have watched numerous movies during my life but Dangal shook me at a level that I did not anticipate. Being born as a Nigerian woman makes me understand what it means when society has already taken some of their decisions on what a girl must or must not do. It is not an exaggeration to say that watching this movie felt to me like watching a mirror: I saw myself, I saw my sisters and all girls who ever had to show that they are not weak. Wrestling is not the only subject of this movie. It is about dignity, hope, and struggle over a dream that in a world that is constantly telling it is, “No, this is not yours.”

The novel starts in a small Indian village. There was also a man called Mahavir Singh Phogat who had a dream of achieving a gold medal in India in wrestling. Life made him forfeit those dreams. He had a desire to have a son to do what he failed to accomplish. Only daughters, however, were his lot. To him, this constituted the death of his hope. and just as I were to think he would lose heart and conform to the normal life which surrounded him, a miracle occurred. He found something that was burning within his girls. They could fight. Then they might grapple. They were robust. His father became a fire in his heart at that time and decided to make his daughters into heroes.

I recall sitting there, and wondering how this is going to work. Gals padding with boys? Girls are the bearers of an entire society which makes fun of them?” I had a constricted feeling in my chest. We also have our own set of people in Nigeria that tell us women cannot dream too big. I could tell that the pain of these little girls Geeta and Babita running in the heat, cutting off their hair, doing weights and hearing the neighbors laughing that their father was a mad person. However, it is that these girls forced the tears down their throats and continued the fight that impressed me the most. Not at first their own, but their father.

The training sequences shattered me and at the same time motivated me. I just wondered, would I have survived? Their feet were swollen, their spirits bruised and still their father had a vision that led them on. It was bringing to my mind how as women we are at times forced to do the things we feel are impossible to achieve. It seems like punishment when we are about to experience but we later understand that they prepare us. I could not help watching. I could not quit hoping.

Then the moment of truth, wrestling boys. I was pounding on my heart because Geeta was coming into the arena. Everybody mocked, laughed, doubted. I blurted, under my breath, to myself, please, girl, show them. When she struggled with every drop of sweat and courage, so rose in me. Like she was the only girl on earth wrestling that boy with herself. All the girls, who were told that they could not drive, could not lead and could not make decisions by themselves. Geeta bagged the victory not only a medal but the creation of a new man and a new respect.

The film did not end at that. Success has started to transform Geeta as she continues to grow. She believed she knew how it was better than her father knew, she believed she no longer required his punishments. That hurts me as well since I have witnessed the same. At times we are unable to recognize the fruits when the sour root begins to lift. And when she began to lose matches I sat heavy-hearted. It is not only her failure but the pain of her father. A lesson that destiny is killed by pride.

The waiting was too suspenseful. Or would she know her error? Was she to be revived? Or should all her father have sacrificed go to pieces? I shed tears when Geeta finally humbled herself, regained the connection to the teachings she got when she was young, and once faced the greatest test of her career. The gold match did not only represent a struggle to win gold. It was a battle over every girl having the right to be seen, respected, and valued. The manner in which the camera was used to show her father locking out of the arena was praying silently behind closed doors and the burden of his expectations resting on the daughter of his promising dreams was just painful and beautiful. I was shaking as I watched.

And when she did win! oh, I could not keep down my tears. She did not only win an Indian medal. She triumphed on the behalf of women. She won as a daughter's. She won all the fathers that think that their girl is just as good as a boy. This scene was so compelling it sent me to my seat in silence long after the credits went off reflecting on my own life, my own father, and my own struggle as a Nigerian woman.

One life lesson that I learnt in Dangal is that there are other battles that you fight not on a mat but in the mind of society. It made me realize that discipline is not being punished-it is another kind of love. It helped me remember that all the “no” we hear can be turned into the inspiration of a bigger “yes.” It taught me most of all, that girls never are less. Not here in Nigeria, not in India or any place.

Watching this movie, one must be prepared to weep, to rejoice, to recall one's own trials. It is not only a sports movie. It is a reflection of what all the women have to go through in a world attempting to make them smaller. And one question it leaves you with that will reverberate heavily in your head even after the screen turns off; “Are our daughters really less than our sons?”