Sisters

Spent some time in the company of sister duos. 

So we won’t be talking about “The Three Sisters” or “The Makioka Sisters”?

Not this time.

How different is a relationship between female siblings compared to male siblings?

Judging by this group of movies, polarities are highlighted. One is usually more dominant than the other. One tends to be deemed as “good” more than the other - that just means one conforms to a traditional female role more than the other. I can sense in these works that there are deeper psychic bonds among sisters compared to brothers. But I’ll never know that since I only have brothers. Guys tend not to be that emotional. We just fight it out.

Spoiler alert: A lot of these works deal about death.

Indeed, spoilers ahead. Because a sister usually dies. 

These might as well belong in grief narratives.

It’s a plot point to show that even in death the sisterly bond is strong.

In the case of Shirley Jackson’s “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” the narrator turns out to be a ghost.

Reading rule: Never trust a first person narrator.

She may turn out to be the bad seed who poisoned her family with Amanita phalloides.

The dominant sister and therefore bad sister turns out to be the youngest one, Merricat. The older sister takes the blame for the earlier crime. But even in death, they have a strong bond. 

They are ghost sisters. The tagline for the rest of the works we’ll talk about should be “One dies at the end.”

Save one movie.

We’ll save that one for last. 

The starting point for all this was Brian De Palma’s “Sisters.” Twin sisters.

(d. Brian De Palma, 1972)

And one of them turns out to be dead.

But such a strong bond they had being Siamese twins and all that the dead one lives in the live one - splitting her mind -

Splitting the screen literally.

Classic De Palma move. At first we are led to believe that there are two sisters, one having a healthy sex life in 1970s Staten Island.

And the other is a hot mess. Obviously borrowed from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.”

Another classic De Palma move.

There’s another work here titled “Sisters.”

A book by Daisy Johnson. The sisters are almost twins. Named July and September. Ten months apart in birth. The dominant one is also the screwed up one.

Or is she?

One of them dies. But at the end of the book, they share so much in their head that one becomes indistinguishable from the other.  I love her wordplays. “Howlingbanderlootinggrifter” is how the dead dad is described. And wouldn’t you like to call people “ranksalivafaces”?

I appreciate the way she injected Gothic horror elements to a contemporary setting.

I don’t think the plot twists provoked surprise in me. But it unsettled me. It’s a dysfunctional sibling relationship. The violence builds insidiously, starting out as children’s games then psychological terror. What’s worse? Physical violence or psychic violence? 

It should have a trigger warning.

Speaking of horror, I can’t believe I have not seen “A Tale of Two Sisters” until now. Probably because at the time it came out I had higher esteem for Japanese horror.

(d. Kim Jee-won, 2003)

It’s Gothic-Korean. An isolated country house. Ghost sightings. A dead bird. Creepy photos.

The movie’s sister bond becomes complicated by guilt. The polarities are not as extreme. One’s more protective than the other. You think she’s the stronger one, but she’s actually the one who’s more destroyed because of her guilt.

If you want to write a comparative lit paper, you can write about ghost reveals.

When characters reveal to the audience that they’re actually dead? I’m sure someone has written that already. Is it more surprising when it’s cinematic? Like “The Sixth Sense” or “The Others”? Or is it more surprising in literary works? 

The next four films explore themes of female roles in society and use sisters to highlight them.

We spend almost half of "Hum Aapke Hain Koun ...!" in preparation for a wedding. Not the wedding for Madhuri Dixit’s character, Nisha, but that of her sister. It’s a movie where nothing happens but there’s a wedding, a baby shower, and a funeral.

(d. Sooraj Barjatya, 1994)

Dare I say it? Like Edward Yang’s “Yi Yi”?

But big-ly. Because it’s Bollywood. The main plot point, quite late into the movie, is when Nisha’s sister, Pooja, falls down the stairs and dies. Does Nisha take the place of her dead sister and marry her brother-in-law and not his brother so the baby could have a mother and a father?

The dog solves their problem. 

I mean, each family member has a role to play.

But not interchangeably!

The movie spends a lot of time extolling the family unit. But the ending is quietly revolutionary. Madhuri Dixit and Salman Khan’s characters don’t conform to what the family originally wants - or what the society in general dictates.

With the help of the family dog.

The polarities between sisters here aren’t as extreme. Madhuri’s Nisha is modern because she wears roller skates and doesn’t need a matchmaker.

“Housekeeping” has one sister step in to a role, much like Nisha would have done.

The children are older when their aunt steps in.

(d. Bill Forsyth, 1987)

The story is really about two sets of sisters. 

So yeah, Ruth and Lucille don’t die, but their mother, Helen, drives her car into a lake at the beginning of the movie. Their Aunt Sylvie returns to take care of them. What plays out when Ruth and Lucille grow up is what might have played out when Sylvie and Helen were growing up. Lucille rejects the non-traditional lifestyle that Sylvie follows, which Ruth also grows into.

The title says it all. 

Lucille will become a housekeeper, have kids, and maybe drive a car off a cliff?

While Ruth and Aunt Sylvie separate from conformity and live as transients.

The sisters in “Invisible Life” are also separated.

The separation is sadder because you feel the strong bond between them. That they actually love each other and root for each other.

(d. Karim Ainouz, 2019)

Although they both live in Rio de Janeiro, they are separated by the worlds they occupy. The banished sister, Guida, lives among prostitutes, while Euridice is married with children and nursing a dream of being a concert pianist.

They are also separated by time.

Guida is already dead by the time Euridice finds out they live in the same city. It’s a bittersweet reunion. But the coda works because of Fernanda Montenegro. I haven’t seen her since “Central Station” more than 20 years ago.

Spoiler alert: neither sister dies in “Seeta Aur Geeta.”

(d. Ramesh Sippy, 1972)

Identical twin sisters! The same year De Palma's "Sisters" was released. It’s a Bollywood movie, so it’s an identity switch comedy. The polarities are played up to comic effect. One grew up poor and streetwise, the other is rich and meek. When they switch identities, comedy ensues.

I think all the songs are sung by Geeta.

Because she’s the dominant one. The sister who’s more fun. Assuming a role is more literal here. Geeta, who has more spunk, tries to fit into Seeta once she assumes the name. Seeta has a more traditional, feminine role.

I loved it because of Hema Malini.

She embodies a valuable point throughout the movie. As an actress, a woman can contain the polarities the movie ascribes to Seeta and Geeta.

It doesn’t have to be one or the other. A woman can roller skate and cook, too.