When The Music Changes is the haunting tale of Devi (Lakshmi Devy), a New York documentarian who finally has a moment to spend time with her friends, family, and fiance in her hometown in India. On the outside, Devi appears to be a strong, independent woman, but no one sees that she has found herself in an abusive relationship with her fiance, Arjun (Adith Arun).
Arjun cares very little about Devi’s career and complains about her spending too much time in New York. While her friends celebrate her work, Arjun becomes jealous of the attention she receives. The more time Arjun and Devi spend together, the more her friends see a problem.
While playing a “friendly” game of cricket, Arjun’s team loses, and he “expresses his displeasure” with the other team’s captain. Later, while eating in a food court, Arjun gets into a physical fight with the captain, and in the end, the score has clearly not been settled. Later, Arjun is with the guys on the day of the big football match to watch the game. On the way to Arjun’s apartment, Devi comes across Arjun’s rival. When Devi tries to be friendly and apologize to Arjun, the men have other plans for her.
“When Devi tries to be friendly and apologize for Arjun, the men have other plans for her.”
Through When The Music Changes, writer/director/star Lakshmi Devy hopes to shine a massive light on a problem women face in India, where physical and sexual assault runs rampant. In fact, every sixteen minutes, a woman is raped in that country.
The first half of this dramatic short shows how even the strongest women unknowingly find themselves trapped in an abusive relationship — dominated in every way by their partner. We then shift to the toxic-aggressive nature of men who ultimately use Devi (and the women in their lives) to exact revenge on one another. In this case, it is all over a stupid game. The assault scene is handled almost too delicately yet alarming enough to warrant a trigger warning nonetheless. Finally, Devy shows the aftermath of sexual assault on a person. In this single moment, Devi’s life is changed forever. The assault was terrible, but the senseless reason behind it stings even worse.
Narratives like When The Music Changes need to be told. It’s through short films like this that the bullied and the victims of abuse can get their stories out. From the start, it’s easy to see that Lakshmi Devy had an indie film budget, which speaks to the way studios shy away from controversial subject matter about women.
When it comes to men and women, we’ve lost our way long ago. Sadly, stories like When The Music Changes need to be told to keep the problem at the forefront.
For screening information, the When The Music Changes official web page.
"…hopes to shine a massive light on a problem women face in India..."
