Iago vs Langda

Just like every Bengali filmmaker wishing to do a film on the literature of Rabindranath Tagore, quite a handful of reputed international filmmakers wish to film Shakespeare’s plays. It’s not an easy task by any means. Primarily because the language of the text seems remote and several comparisons with international projects ~ be it film or theatre  ~ is inevitable. Vishal Bhardwaj first showed signs of commitment and authorship in his version of Shakespearean Macbeth ~  Maqbool (2004). In two years he followed it up with Omkara (2006), which is based on William Shakespeare’s epic lore of tragedy and betrayal ~ Othello. It will probably be unwise to compare in detail, the two pieces of art created in different media and separated by four centuries. We can, however, briefly look into the character of Langda Tyagi in Omkara and try to find a parallel with Iago in Othello.
Before looking into Iago or Langda, there are few notable differences between the play and the film which I think needs a mention at least once ~ these differences are due to the difference of interpretation between the two authors as well as one imposed due to the differences in the art form. For example, the play is spatially staged in Venice and Cyprus. The two different locales having different geographical and social relevance make the mood of the play so gripping. More importantly the play effectively uses soliloquies. The use of soliloquies is particularly important since there is a lot of debate round the motive of Iago for perpetuating a web of deceit, jealousy and eventual crime ~ the soliloquies which are supposed to mirror Iago’s inner wish and motive but which were often different from his actions. For this reason many critics consider Iago as a compulsive villain ~ the compulsion being his psychotic mind rather than more particular reasons for his behavior.
Also, Othello is black against a fair-skinned Iago, Desdemona or Roderigo. There are references of Iago’s hatred towards the dark skin (“Even now, now, very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe” ~ Act 1 Scene 1). There are also a number of eavesdropping sequences in the play wherein most of them in the film intelligently used cell-phones which actually accelerate the jealousy of Omkara for Dolly and Billo for Kesu. No one can forget the handkerchief that caused the climax in the play that was replaced by a waistband in the film probably due to a particular “item number” song sequence. The differences in the adaptation prove beyond doubt that the director Vishal Bhardwaj had an eye for “adaptation” and not “translation”. The characteristic of change is most apparent, however, in the character of Langa as opposed to Iago.
Iago is one of Shakespeare’s most prominent villains. Many critics have opined that Iago is a classical Machiavellian villain ~ he is shrewd (worked for a master plan) and finds wicked enjoyment in evil for evil’s sake. He is paranoid, uses weakness/strengths of victims and appears good to other people/characters. Most importantly, Iago is unrepentant. The play begins with Iago and Roderigo’s dialogues when we first come to know that Othello, the Moor of Venice has chosen Cassio as his successor ahead of Iago. Right from the beginning in the play we come to know of Iago’s hatred towards Othello. And that Iago will plan revenge ~ “I follow him to serve my turn upon him” (Act 1 Scene 1) and then ~ “Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains. Yet, for necessity of present life, I must show out a flag and sign of love, Which is indeed but sign.”
But Langda’s disappointment was built up. As audience we also feel that he has been betrayed since his character was portrayed as capable as opposed to Kesu’s frivolous one. Also the reason Omkara gives to BhaiSab was that Kesu’s popularity among college students would help in the elections ~ justice denied for Langda justifiably. Throughout the film we see a Langda who is always ill-planning but is not probably as cold-blooded as Iago. Langda is more human and raw unlike the silken Iago who was a master of speech and revered by Othello and all as “Honest Iago”. Langda is also not as conniving as Iago ~ there are situations where Langda capitalised on an incident afterwards instead of planning that ~ for example, using Dolly’s waistband (stolen by Langda’s wife Indu) to plot Kesu against Billo and Omkara. In the original play Iago only persuaded Emilia to steal the handkerchief!
The final act proves that Langda is conscious of his acts and that he is only responsible for all the wrongdoing. Though in the end he admits that he has nothing more to say, that is, when he feels he is unsure of the distinction between good and evil any further. Iago in contrast was unrepentant as he remained silent when demanded explanation ~ “Demand me nothing: what you know, you know: From this time forth I never will speak word.” (Final Act)
For a Bollywood mainstream hero (Saif Ali Khan) acting in a mainstream film like Omkara the concept of villainy gets muted. He is seldom shown as remorseless, calculative and devastating. The muted villain can at most be a tragic anti-hero molded on the cast of the epic character of Mahabharat’s Karna. There have been instances of the popular star playing a negative character as the central character. However, with Ajay Devgan playing Omkara, the central character in the film, the director in pursuit of making the film commercially viable, elevated the role of Langda as almost a parallel of Omkara (and not as a subservient as in the original) ~ an anti-hero pitted against a hero. The anti-hero is deprived by fate (he being lame), then by his leader (Omkara) and finally dies in the hands of his wife (remember, Iago was never killed by Emilia) ~ a perfect setting for drawing immense audience sympathy and support. Even the ranks of Vishal Bhardwaj cannot save Langda from falling into the familiar trope that restrict Bollywood commercial cinema from being adventurous in its exploration of truth.

(The article was an original paper presented by the author during a one-day international seminar at the department of English and other modern European languages, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan in collaboration with United States–India Educational Foundation, Kolkata. The topic of the seminar was “Literature and cinema: Bollywood connections”.)

Published in The Statesman, April 30,2011 -> http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=367802&catid=47

Bernardo Bertolucci’s Dream

[Foreword:  Bernardo Bertolucci’s 2003 film The Dreamers is a tribute to cinema. Its mainly a tribute to the European school of cinema which had been critically acclaimed and inspirationally followed across the globe. Hence it doesn’t need any time to hook onto it. For film buffs of India and the other Third world countries, this surely works – nostalgia and associations flood in and making the viewing experience quite worthwhile in most of the case. This also reminds of two very interesting and subtly different films which also pay tribute to the motion pictures - Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso (1998) and Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Once Upon a Time, Cinema (1992). The latter pays tribute to the Iranian film history of the silent age. It’s quite unfortunate that in spite of being the biggest cinema industry of the world, it’s hard to find an epical re-take of the country’s cinematic ingenuity.

This review is an insulated view of the Bertolucci film with a hope that future Indian film-makers get inspired to lay their hands on the treasure trove called the Indian Film Industry]

A lengthy introduction!

In 1968 Luis Walter Alvarez of USA won the Nobel Prize in Physics for "the discovery of a large number of resonance states, made possible through his development of the technique of using hydrogen bubble chamber and data analysis." A little elaboration of the bubble chamber will let us understand that this is, in common terms, nothing but a vessel with transparent fluid which is almost at its boiling state. When an ionizing particle passes through such a bubble chamber, bubbles are formed along its trajectory due to boiling of the liquid, which can then be photographed and statistically analyzed. In essence, Alvarez’s research allowed nuclear scientists to record and study the short lived particles created in particle accelerators

The reason for such a prelude for a film critique seems absurd in the beginning. However if we delve a little further we will try to understand the analogy. It is ironical that the reason cited by the Nobel academy has so much correlation with the actual state of things world wide, in 1968. Thus, the world becomes a bubble chamber where there are so many ‘resonance’ states (which at times are radical to say the least) – the ‘Prague Spring’ of 1968 that was suddenly ended by the invasion of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia, double assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy in the USA, ten thousand demonstrators protesting outside the Democratic Convention in Chicago, USA, around eighty thousand march in protest of the Vietnam War in London who were mauled down by mounted police,  the aftermath of the death of Che Guevara a year back, the ongoing Vietnam War, the formation of the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR - which adopted two salient strategies for its operations - ‘Allegiance to the armed struggle and non-participation in the elections’), the student riot in Paris, France which soon was merged with the general strike of the workers in protest of inadequate wages -- the list is even longer.

            Hence it is really interesting to read a film which is set up in the backdrop of 1968 Paris student revolution – The Dreamers by Bernardo Bertolucci. More so, because Bertolucci deliberately brought in actual footage as well enactment of the cinephiles’ demonstrations outside the Cinematheque Francaise against the dismissal of its creator Henri Langois by Andre Malraux, De Gaulle’s Minister of Culture. These are the opening moments of the film which sets expectations about the director’s take on the days of 1968 Paris. We find Matthew, an American who is a cine fanatic getting friendly with a twin – the alluring Theo and his glamorous yet seductive sister Isabelle. Soon these three forms a group – what eventually unfolds is a homo-erotic drama of carnal love, longing and incestuous fervor between them (an echo of Jean Cocteau’s Les Enfants Terribles) interspersed with some magnificent montage of earlier films (the director’s tribute to cinema?) – Alas, 1968’s Paris moves back and only resurfaces in the closing sequence of the film

Depiction of Kinship Libido: the public vs. the private

In his seminal The Psychology of the Transference Carl Jung writes:

“Everyone is now a stranger among strangers. Kinship libido-which could still engender a satisfying feeling of belonging together, as for instance in the early Christian communities-has long been deprived of its object. But, being an instinct, it is not to be satisfied by any mere substitute such as a creed, party, nation, or state. It wants the human connection. That is the core of the whole transference phenomenon, and it is impossible to argue it away, because relationship to the self is at once relationship to our fellow man, and no one can be related to the latter until he is related to himself.”

We will try to read the traits of kinship libido in this film.

            Majority of the reel time is taken in the slow exploration of the self-imposed isolation of Mathew, Theo and Isabelle in the twin’s apartment once their parents left to visit the countryside. During Matthew’s first night in their apartment he spies on them sleeping together naked – the voyeuristic peek disturbs Matthew as he becomes confused about his impending relation with the duo. Later on in a defining moment of the film, Matthew will come to know that the twins were not ‘lovers’ (atleast, they never had sex!!). As days passed and the trio locks them up even further from the outside world, they play games, act out roles from films and test each other’s knowledge. They, in this sense live in their dreams, in a world which is remotely placed from the current affairs. In one outstanding scene (I will discuss certain similar sequences and scenes in the next section) Isabelle and Theo challenge Matthew to help them break the record time for running through the Louvre established in Band of Outsiders. Bertolucci gets back and forth between Godard’s film and his own and in this fusion the earlier film as if acts as a dream memory for the characters – a powerful symbol of the ‘dream’ image associated to cinema in the minds of these Parisians as well interpreting if it’s a dream of the present film as well. The win in the race ensured that Mathew got the passport to enter the ‘world’ of the twins as they chant – ‘We accept you, one of us!’. As the three celebrate their victory march, Bertolucci cuts to Tod Browning’s Freaks where a group of deformed characters are singing this, loud and harsh. Much later, as audience, we will be able to correlate the connection between this film and the present one – the ‘freakish’ state of mind of the twins which Mathew eventually challenges. Soon, an undercurrent of psycho-analytical tussle of sexual rivalry ensues and which started as a Mathew-Isabelle bonding soon drifts to a more stable Theo-Isabelle pairing. This is embodied in a bath sequence where Isabelle and Theo wish to shave Mathew’s manhood – turning him to the child of their desire or else, transgressing him as a ‘freak’.

Coming back to the opening quote of Jung, the twins are basically entrapped in the psychoanalytical kinship libido, in other words, they are in an uroboric state. This is a ‘natural’ state in childhood but to become ‘adult’ this libido needs to be broken for the individuals to grow up separately instead of clinging to each other in a cocoon which disallows their individual as well as collective growth. This is the unconscious state and hence self-reliant and self-sufficient in its close world. As days pass on, Matthew will eventually realise that the twins live in their world of own where Mathew is also another toy – helping them to continue their incest uroboric state.

French film director Francois Truffaut who had been an influential figure of the New Wave of the ‘60s had once said -

“I also believe that every film must contain some degree of 'planned violence' upon its audience. In a good film, people must be made to see something that they don't want to see; they must be made to approve of someone of whom they had disapproved, they must be forced to look where they had refused to look”

Being an admirer of Truffaut, Bertolucci also, seems to tread similar paths – nudity has never been made lurid in this film. On the contrary, taking cue from Truffaut’s belief, the on-screen nudity at times lingered rather longer than being sensationalized, thereby making it as a common portrait of the film. And, there is substantial male frontal nudity as well to balance the female part – thereby ripping off the possibility of a dominant male gaze on the female body. However, saying this, the female body (Isabelle’s) was the subject of gaze of Mathew who in turn represents the audience at large. But this look in many ways is devoid of sexual urge, rather it is that of an anatomists curiosity. The representation of sexuality plays an important role in this film in placing itself as the ‘private’ as opposed to the ‘public’ (the 1968’s revolutionary Paris). These polar opposites are also symbolized as the home as opposed to the streets and as mentioned, Mathew spearheads the audience in intruding the ‘personal’ (dream) and ‘private’ (reality) spaces in the lives of these hermetically sealed twin couple. In reference to Before the Revolution as well as Last Tango in Paris, it cans be observed that in both places there is this eternal turmoil in trying to flee from reality, either through sex or in listless loitering and pretentious posturing as ‘intellectuals’ or submerging in the artificial world of movies.

Theo once said that they were Siamese twins conjoined in the mind – in essence the film finally turns out to churn the same old clichéd plot – the war over a woman where Theo gains the mind and Mathew the body (initially). Looking at a different angle, Theo and Isabelle are basically the same unit, the mind and body of one object (the uroborus) wherein Mathew is the external stimulant – drawn closer and then finally stranded on the street. To the audience, hence, Bertolucci delivers a fertile space to ponder where a luscious girl loses her virginity and gets locked in a lunging kiss smeared with blood and an enigmatic shot of a lock of Isabelle’s hair catching fire.

A tribute to cinema

In a very important moment of the film when Mathew first takes out Isabelle on a date, and they end up in the movie theatre, he doesn’t sit in the front rows which he always used to sit, rather he prefers the back rows citing, front rows are for those ‘who don’t have anyone’. Ironically it also refers to his state of affairs some time ago. Interestingly, at the start of the film in Mathew’s voice over we hear life ‘bursting through the scene’ for him. It seems he now wants to sit back and observe from a distance, his date with dreaming is over.

            As referred earlier as well, this film is studded with many finer classic moments borrowed from yesteryear films which Bertolucci have mixed so aptly that those scenes also become part of this film – they have a statement to make. One already mentioned is the Band of Outsiders run through the Louvre. In another, Isabelle imitates the memory scene from Queen Christina as we hear the original soundtrack. In another later sequence, Theo and Mathew draw themselves into a pointless ‘who-is-better’ debate taking Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. In the same sequence, Theo talks about Mao and the Red Guard and is all for revolution and as audience we understand the vacuum in his beliefs as he is reluctant to shed his cosy environment. On the contrary Mathew also turns out to be equally confused when Theo charges him about his ambiguous stance in the Vietnam War trying to justify it but himself not joining the troops. In another brilliant shot, Matthew asks Isabelle when she was born and she answers, “I entered this world on the Champs Elysees in 1959, and my very first words were, ‘New York Herald Tribune!’” Almost synchronized is the cut to Jean Seberg selling the newspaper in Godard’s  Breathless – a direct reference of Isabelle’s positioning, she is the child of the French New Wave. There are a number of direct musical scores that were used from Pierrot le fou and The 400 Blows. In another funny scene during the bonding phase of the trio, Isabelle enacts a scene in white clothes from Blonde Venus as well as impersonating the character that Greta Garbo played in Queen Christina. There were also references and enactments from Scarface, Top Hat (mention of a tap dancer), Sunset Boulevard (Isabelle puts on sunglasses imitating Gloria Swanson) , Nadine Nortier’s suicide in Mouchette along with the inimitable James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause which also points to similar restlessness amongst the youth of the USA.

            Musically as well, the film showed the smart usage of Bob Dylan mixed with Jimi Hendrix (Third stone from the Sun) and the favourite Charles Trenet - Albert Lasry’s La Mer which acts as a defining piece symbolizing Isabelle’s embracing of Mathew and her rejecting him as well. In the scene where Theo and Mathew debate on Keaton and Chaplin, Mao and Vietnam, Isabelle didn’t take part in the rage which soon turned out to be jealous outburst of both, camouflaged behind their sophisticated veneer – the background score used was Jimi Hendrix’s Hey Joe (which depicts a lover preparing to shoot ‘his’ woman for taking another guy!!).

Conclusion

Near the very end of the film a rock is thrown through the window where this trio was sleeping. That marked their wakeup call from their dream to the reality – the revolution of the streets ‘bursts through’ the window. Is this an ‘awakening’ which the director wants us to believe – I doubt it, since throughout this callous philosophical standing of the central characters, we as audience, can feel the director’s sympathy for them. There is no harm in it even though the side-taking ponders over being pretentious at times. However, as I read the tumultuous years of 1968 now, I cannot help but lament that none of the trio sang with Paul McCartney “Hey Jude, you’ll do, the movement is on your shoulders”.

A door to Adoor Gopalakrishnan

Adoor Gopalakrishnan is an exceptional film-maker. Not only is his oeuvre holds the colours of the rainbow, but more importantly when the social world tries to teach us to run and ruin – ourselves and the life round us, he is a graceful exception to this ‘accepted’ norm. Hence, a book on Adoor – his films and the creative mind behind this palette was due for many years. Starting a career in 1972 (feature film consideration) in the last 40 years Adoor made 11 feature films. There are probably few books and many essays on him in Malyali language – the official language of Kerala, where Adoor lives and centres his cinema. There is however an extreme dearth of material on Adoor in English – which also goes on to show the state of regional cinema and its acceptance and expanse. Gautam Bhaskaran’s Adoor Gopalakrishnan: A Life in Cinema which came out this year and a soon-to-be-published one by Suranjan Ganguly are the only two I know of. Whereas, no comment can be made of Suranjan’s book since its yet to be published, its more or less safe to comment on Bhaskaran’s one (though I never read it) that it was more towards the man and how he relates to cinema (Since it claims to be an ‘official’ biography of the man!).

South Asian Cinema Foundation’s A Door to Adoor (2006) creates interest since it is a monograph on Adoor’s creativity which attempts to quench the thirst of any serious movie-goer. The book however takes into account the 9 films made till its publication i.e. from Swayamvaram(1972) to Nizhalkkuthu(2002). The sleek, production-perfect book is stylish and starts of with a very engaging piece of Suranjan Ganguly’s – bringing in the concept of the Outsider in Adoor’s films (though there are heaps of acknowledged praises from Syam Benegal, Mrinal Sen and Girish Kasaravalli in the Foreword and the special mentions which precede this piece). Suranjan deftly flows his concept of the outsider in the social-scape (as in Swayamvaram) to a more mental one (in Nizhalkkuthu) drawing his logic from the base roots of Adoor’s works. It can be expected that his complete book on the maestro will probably expand the seed that he sowed here and thereby raises expectations. Two other writings deserve special mention – the one by Adoor himself titled Image, Imagination and Creativity. This is rather intricate as Adoor structures his creative process onto the pillars of experience in life, imaging the experiences, associating memory factor in the recalled images to form imageries and then layering them brick by brick based on the artist’s interpretation of life and his aesthetic sensibilities. This in conjunction with a superb interview of his by C S Venkiteswaram tries to throw some light on the creative mind that works and churns out films that are so varied. That creative process is inimitable. What can be imitated probably is the operational process of film making. However, it’s always interesting to try to fathom the mental map of geniuses – their methods and the sparks that they turn into flames. The interviewer interestingly ‘discussed’ things, giving appropriate cues for the shy individual to speak on his unspoken self, rather than getting engaged in tight-lipped ‘questioning’. Probably a more focus on Chitralekha –the film society and the cooperative movement would have deserved. I have read an otherwise haphazard long interview of Adoor taken by Bangladesh’s Mohammed Khusroo in the latter’s Dhrupad magazine in the 80s where Adoor spoke in detail of his Chitralekha days. Since Chitralekha was such an important phase in Adoor’s life, the history of parallel cinema movement in Kerala and extending that to the same of India in general, we as readers could only hope if there were article(s) on that – a cooperative philosophy which is extremely valid even in today’s world of multiplexes and micro-target audience.

However, the memoir by Shampa Banerjee which is a personal note seemed out-of-place in an otherwise non-personal collection. Noted critic Maithili Rao’s and P. K. Nair’s pieces lacked the depth found in Suranjan Ganguly’s critique. Both the pieces were less structured and at times incomplete in the reasoning paradigm that they set out to explore. It could have been a worthy try if there were separate articles on each of Adoor’s films instead of multiple critics trying to shed their light on few films of him.

Satyajit Ray had always showered his liking for Adoor and Adoor himself reciprocated time and again for his fondness of Ray and his works. Critics alike have henceforth accepted it as granted and stopped at looking deeper into the two geniuses. Like Girish Kasaravalli mentioned in his opening notes –“Though he greatly admires Satyajit Ray, the path he treads is quite different from what Indian cinema has witnessed so far”. This is indeed ironical, coming from a contemporary Indian film-maker. Adoor could have been measured against none other than his compatriot G Aravindan, or Buddhadeb Dasgupta or even Ritwik Ghatak. He had similarities germinating from a collective Indian fabric but distinctly holding on to traditional indigenous values of his people and soil. This also sheds light on the nature of such ‘collections’ – that they are almost always only respectful and rarely analytical leave alone challenging.

Be it sound design where he repeatedly proclaims that ‘no-sound’ is itself a component of sound design or with his stupendous economy of shots (something which he undoubtedly inherited from the towering Ray), Adoor is a great proponent and example of minimalism in art. In the final count, A door to Adoor succeeded to hold on to that spirit of the master film-maker. Like any ideal critique, the collection will aspire the reader to reach out to viewing his films again (even if they are difficult to get hold of, at-least quite a few of them), to debate and discuss and to get mesmerized by his art of narration that focuses on the minutest details of human life with a disdain towards anything that betrays life. Like any humanist, artist or otherwise, Adoor is successful to preserve that rare quality of profound love for life and for his fellow human beings. Lalit Mohan Joshi deserves big thanks to bring out this collection which conserves that essence and makes the reading a thoroughly enjoyable experience

Memories in March - revisited

Reading my initial critique on Memories in March (directed by debutant Sanjoy Nag) my friend film critic Suchetana mailed back - "Sahana is portrayed as the very psyche of our patriarchal society which only features women as commodity? Is sexuality more imporatnt than grief here?" It was a sharp incisive prick at the fabric of my review which I have to admit forced me to harp briefly on few ideas that crossed my mind. When I look back at Memories in March (henceforth referred here as MiM) again, it is apparent that the issues of gender identity takes centrestage in this film. So much so, that at times we tend to forget that Arati came to Kolkata from Delhi hearing the news of her only son's accidental demise. Apart from the initial slow built-up nowhere grief could stand besides the shock of truth that Arati discovered - her son Sid was a gay. In an interesting conversation Ornob, Sid's boss asked Arati which mattered most to her. It was no surprise that she was equally heart-broken that Sid was a gay. As the film progressed it was apparent that Arati and Sid had a relationship wherein Sid probably could open up his 'closet'.

Why didn't Sid tell his mother that he has a gay lover. Probably as George Orwell mentioned once, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act"? Or there is a deep sense of guilt, of rejection that lurked in Sid's mind. Sid was never physically present, it was only through voice-overs he comes to us. So it is not fair to judge his positioning in the drama of same-gender love. However, Ornob seemed calm, poised, philosophical - above reasoning and beyond doubts. By elevating Ornob's psyche to a stature which normal humans may find difficult to achieve, the director tried to close few open questions on sexuality. However if we look at Sid's SMS which he drafted for his mother but couldn't send, its apparent that he feared that his 'rational' mother will also not accept. This brings us to the five stages of grief for a homo-sexual person as depicted in psychiatry - Denial, Anger, Bargain, Depression and finally Acceptance. These all are the steps towards the self. Ornob suggested that it was Sid who advanced him first, and Ornob only reciprocated. Is it then that Ornob didn't experience any of these stages of grief due to his sheer profound ideology? What about Sid then? He had the fear of the other (his mother here) - but isn't that actually a fear of the self? Isn't it that he himself denies his stature as a homo-sexual the reason for his delay in breaking it to his mother? The film's narrative however tells that he is the initiator. Probably the fine balance of love-tension got altered here a bit where it is more probable that Ornob, the initiated may have the fear of self and to the other more than Sid, the initiator. If we look deep into it, we hear Arati confessing that after her divorce with Sid's father she probably didn't spend much time with Sid - she was confused if that had some bearing on Sid's 'abnormality'. In his seminal essay Maternal care and mental health (World Health Organization Monograph (Serial No. 2), 1951) J Bowlby mentioned “the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment”. Do we hear Arati's concerns here? In Shame and Attachment Loss: The Practical Work of Reparative Therapy (InterVarsity Press, 2009) Joseph Nicolosi categorically mentions the different homo-sexual patients (more than a thousand or so) who tend to homo-sexual attributes, behave such due to want of recognition and in being an outcast in the mental space. The societal structure is such, he mentioned, that many of his patients have unanimously retorted that though their psychiatrists clarified that alternate sexuality is perfectly 'normal', they at times wonder why are they inflicted with this 'abnormality'. And they have raised concerns with the lack in biological construct in a man-man relationship. Was Sid a person like them or Ornob? We don't know what made them 'different' in their seeking of personal comfort and peace. By making Sid physically muted, the director tried to dissociate the sexual connotation if any that would otherwise resonate in the screen cohabitation of Ornob and Sid. Rather, he replaced it with the slanted Oedipal reference of Arati and Ornob.

The transition between the reel reality and the narrated reality play a duality here – the reel reality shows Arati, Sahana (Sid’s colleague who was interested in Sid) and Ornob. Ornob was the ‘feminine’ part in the Ornob-Sid chemistry and hence all the three characters represent the ‘lack’ whereas the narrated reality deals with Ornob and Sid who represent the ‘have’. This complete polarized representation surely makes the film’s texture vapid. As mentioned even if we take into account that the director’s intention was to address issues at a mental space, yet, in subjects of homo-sexuality, questions of libido and sexual comfort will come up naturally. To ignore that is trying to avoid the certain confusions in life. And in regarding confusion as denial!

            In one of the initial interactions between Sahana and Arati, Sahana told Arati about her crush for Sid. Then she straightened her dress and quietly challenged Sid’s mother, “Do you think, I am upto the mark for him?” What Arati replied is un-important. What is important perhaps is the singular dialogue puts the matter of Gender in perspective – the patriarchal society looks at woman as a commodity even in an otherwise attempted asexual film.  With this reading there rises obvious questions – firstly in shielding from accepting and hence showing sexual undertones between male characters and secondly in placing Sahana mostly as a subverted sex-denied woman. In this society, men play the sole role of the strong and virile – depleted of their own grief and extending care for their women. This film apparently showed signs of breaking from this norm to an extent but finally falls into the same trap of prevalent gender politics.