In the first part of this article published on April 24, 2016, most of the women in films we discussed belonged to the pre-20^th century world e.g. Hypatia, Razia Sultan, and Joan of Arc; in this concluding part we briefly introduce six characters: two each in Indian, Iranian, and Italian movies. We begin with Italian director Vittorio De Sica’s 1960 masterpiece La Ciociara (Two Women) based on Alberto Moravia’s novel.

Thanks to her outstanding performance in this film, Sophia Loren became the first actor to win an Academy Award for a foreign language film. This movie, set in the closing months of the Second World War, focuses on the mother-daughter relationship that starts with a journey to their hometown and undergoes a transformation after they are brutally assaulted by some soldiers in an abandoned church.

The widowed mother is absolutely devoted to her teenage daughter but finds herself in a dilemma when a young man Michele (played by Jean-Paul Belmondo) confesses his love to her, though the daughter is also attracted to the same man. Now, the allied forces are closing in on Italy and as the bombardment gets intense, the frightened German soldiers compel Michele to show them the way out through the mountains. The mother decides to move back with her daughter to Rome from her village; on their way, when they take shelter in a bombed-out church, despite being a strong woman she is unable to protect her daughter against allied soldiers’ barbarity.

Moravia and De Sica made a bold move by changing the dominant narrative of that time in which only German soldiers were shown to be villains; in Two Women, they successfully demonstrated that during the horrors of war, the common people can become victims of soldiers from any country.

About the Second World War in Italy, another great movie with a memorable woman in it, is Malena (2000) starring Monica Bellucci. Set in the early years of the war, the movie revolves around a young, beautiful woman named Malena, who moves to her husband’s town after marriage. Soon, the husband goes to the war and she is left with her poverty and prettiness at the mercy of the town’s lecherous men and jealous women.

With her majestic elegance, Malena creates a silent aura of tragedy and trauma; her pain remains unspoken throughout the film. She keeps her eyes downcast and her story is narrated by a teenage boy who is infatuated by her beauty. She endures the wrath of her town folks with a strong will and towards the end of the movie becomes the victim of the violence perpetrated not by the German or Allied soldiers but by her own neighbours. To understand the nuances of Malena’s character, you need to watch this movie multiple times, and each time you can hope to discover a new dimension; Monica Bellucci is indeed at her best in this character.

The next two female characters in our list are in two Indian films: Radha played by Nargis in Mother India (1957) and Usha played by Smita Patel in Bhumika (1977). By the time Mehboob Khan directed Mother India, he had already given his two other classics to Indian cinema: Andaz (Dilip Kumar and Madhubala, 1949) and Amar (Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapur, and Nargis, 1954). Mother India garnered an Oscar nomination for best foreign film but failed perhaps due to its melodrama -- so peculiar of the Indian cinema.

Radha is a village woman who is abandoned by her husband (Raj Kumar) and bound by her mother-in-law’s never-ending debt that she gets from the village loan shark Sukhi Lal. Radha toils hard but barely saves enough to feed her children after paying regular loan interests. Her two sons grow to be different persons: Ramu (Rajendra Kumar) becomes a humble and just young man and Birju (Sunil Dutt) grows an outlaw full of hatred for Sukhi Lal. Despite its usual dance-and-song routines, Mother India was perhaps the first Indian movie to have such a strong female character that dominates this three-hour flick. Nargis never gives you a dull moment throughout the movie as she trudges along periods of temporary happiness and prolonged desolation. In the end, she makes a final decision to shoot her own son who tries to molest the daughter of Sukhi Lal, her tormentor for decades.

The character of Usha in Bhumika is entirely different from Radha. The director Shyam Benegal made this marvellous ‘movie about movies’ and brought to light the plight of women actors who all look so happy on screens but have to go through physical and psychological exploitation at the hands of small-time crooks in the cinema industry and even by well-respected producers and directors. Usha is a rebellious woman who initially listens to her mother and then starts making her own decisions from her marriage to her affairs; she takes bold steps in terms of her personal and professional lives and ends up with a ruthless feudal lord who confines her in his large mansion. Usha is subdued but not defeated and keeps her spirits alive even in that stifling confinement.

The last two characters that we discuss here are from Iranian cinema which has produced some outstanding films during the last couple of decades. The first is the character of Fereshteh in the film Do Zan (Two Women, again) directed in 1999 by Tehmineh Milani -- one of Iran’s best known women film directors. The second is the role of Reyhan in the film Border Café (2005).

Do Zan is the story of two women who remain friends through the thick and thin of their lives; one ultimately is happily married, but the other is repeatedly harassed by a stalker and is forcibly married by her father to a despicable man who constantly torments her. Her dreams of achieving something on her own in life are shattered as she is kept almost incommunicado at home. She refuses to give in and the movie takes an unexpected turn when her husband suddenly dies and she calls her friend to inform her about the death but ends up talking about the new possibilities emerging from the demise of her husband.

Border Café is the story of a widow who defies her brother-in-law’s attempts to marry her; though the entire extended family expects her to succumb to the traditions. She decides to remain an independent woman by reopening her late husband’s café on the highway near a border town.  If you have liked the Danish movie Babette’s Feast mentioned earlier in the first part of this article, you will also love the culinary skills of the lead character in this gem of the Iranian Cinema. Border Café’s Reyhan is a defiant woman with a golden heart who goes out of the way to help travellers who happen to be needing a family atmosphere far away from their own homes.

It will not be out of place to introduce a German and a Russian movie too. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) directed by the German director Fassbinder and Oscar-winning Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980) directed by Vladimir Menshov. Both films present characters of strong women who make their decisions and prove their mettle against all odds.