Cinematic Framing of Indian Caste-Religion Hierarchies through Contrasting Depictions of Animal Bodies

This paper examines how cinematic form constructs and critiques caste and religion-basedhierarchies in India through the framing of animal bodies in All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen,2022) and Fandry (Nagraj Manjule, 2013). Drawing on close formal analysis, I argue that sound,lighting, camera movement, and spatial arrangement shape how proximity to animals becomesassociated with either care or humiliation. The slow pacing and close attention to hands andbodies in All that Breathes allow Muslim human and animal lives to exist together without beingframed as dirty or threatening whereas Fandry’s sharp shifts in framing and unsubtle sounddesign push Dalit and pig bodies into full visibility. Read together, these films show how animalsfunction as cinematic mediators of social hierarchy. They reveal that purity and pollution are notfixed moral categories but unstable tools shaped by visibility and control over human and animalbodies alike.