Indian Heat In Toronto

THERE was much to occupy the attention of the media mynahs assembled at Toronto in Canada between September 6 and 14 for the 20th International Film Festival: the sex 'n' smut films depicting obsessions with assorted perversions, the startlingly engaging gay and lesbian films—Bound, Hustler White, Beautiful Thing, not to forget The Watermelon Woman starring Camille Paglia as Camille Paglia; the famous Whoopie Goldberg-Gerard Depardieu spat in the lobby of the Sheraton hotel; the Demi Moore and Cher press conference about their controversial abortion film, If These Walls Could Talk; the Al Pacino "in person" defence of his directorial debut film, Looking For Richard; the brilliant US offering that opened the festival, Fly Away Home; Canadian director David Wellington's stunning cinema adaptation of Eugene O'Neil's rawly autobiographical play about corrosive domestic despair, Long Day's Journey Into Night...

And yet, this glittering array of western films and filmstars failed to deflect the media spotlight and critical attention from two remarkable films, both by Indian women directors, both of which premiered at the festival and both of which may prove controversial when they're released in India. The first, for its unapologetically erotic portrayal of lesbian love complete with bare breast and mouth-to-mouth kissing, as also its honest, if provocative, questioning of sexual and gender inequities; the other for its graphic portrayal of the many faces of love, of guilt-free sexual abandon which includes much display of frontal nudity, as also for its apparent subversion of currently acceptable norms of purity, love and carnality. 

The first, Fire , a low-budget (Canadian $1.65 m) directed by Deepa Mehta, 43, is a courageous, deeply compassionate film about two unhappily married, sexually unfulfilled, middle-class housewives drawn into a mutually nurturing relationship of emotional and sexual complicity that offers them security and hope for survival in a male-dominated society. And the other, the lavish (US $7 m) Kamasutra : a love story set in ancient India starring veteran Indian actress Rekha, US-based actress Sarita Choudhary, 28, and London-based RADA-trained smouldering new find, Indira Varma, 21.  Directed by Mira Nair, 38, this is a visually splendid, luxuriantly sensual, sexually explicit film in the Fellini tradition. If Fire was about soul, Kamasutra was about spectacle.

While both Mehta and Nair were lionised by the media, the day clearly belonged to Mehta. Indeed, Mehta, whose film opened the Perspective Canada section, swept the popularity sweepstakes and nudged USfilmstar Tom Hanks, who was attending the festival, to the sidelines in the widely-circulated NOW magazine that splashed her across its cover as also a whole inside page. "Luminous", "immensely moving", "gorgeous", "splendid" trilled the newspapers and film journals about her film that received unprecedented four-star ratings across the board. The Toronto Star newspaper front-paged the results of its StarPhone survey: callers had voted Fire as their "flick to pick" at the festival. Moved audiences wept, critics and the cognoscenti rose in unison to give her a standing ovation after the gala premiere at the swank Uptown Theater.

Nair got her standing ovation too from the 2,000-strong audience at the Roy Thompson Hall premiere gala. Audiences and reviewers, though, reserved judgement. "Lush", "lusty", rather than "luminous" or "lofty" were the adjectives deployed by film buffs and respected reviewers alike when discussing Kamasutra . The verdict? Mehta was about profundity, Nair about pageantry. Mehta's film was food for the spirit, Nair's film a feast for the senses.

Not an unfair verdict. Fire, which takes up where Ismat Chugtai's perceptive lesbian tale Lihaaf left off, is a tale told from the heart. Mehta removes the lihaaf (quilt) as it were, exposes "the love that has no name" to clear-eyed scrutiny. There's a tender logical inevitability to the sexual sparks that fly between the two neglected women, one sexually, the other emotionally, married to two brothers who run a takeaway and a video parlour from their jointly-owned Delhi home. Middle-aged, barren Radha, brilliantly portrayed by Shabana Azmi, is sexually starved for 13 soulless years by her husband Ashok, played by Kulbhushan Kharbanda. The vivacious newly-married Sita, her young sister-in-law, played by Delhi stage actress Nandita Das, 28, is sexually insulted, emotionally bru-talised by her husband Jatin, played by Jaaved Jaffrey. How these two women gravitate towards each other for physical and spiritual intimacy; the often painful, unsettling, personal discoveries they make along the road to love form the burden of Mehta's story.

MILESTONES along that torturous road to self-discovery are charted with telling, often stunning, simplicity. Radha, back unexpectedly early from a shopping excursion, is outragedto discover the servant, Mundu (Ranjit Chowdhary), masturbating furiously as he watches a pornographic film alongside her silently protesting but utterly helpless mother-in-law rendered mute and inert by a crippling stroke. Mundu defends himself with astute blackmail: he has seen the two women together and will tell all unless he is exonerated. The subsequent scene on a sun-drenched winter terrace is poignant. A troubled Radha cowers in the shadow of an upright charpoy while a defiant Sita reassures her "the little bastard would not dare" divulge, and finally asks anxiously if she is afraid. Radha's answer is telling for what it reveals of her personal growth, her sexual maturation. "I'm not afraid of him. Rather I'm afraid of the intensity of my desire which I'm learning, finally, to acknowledge." That recognition of her deepest urges leads her to tolerance and respect for Mundu's. "Why should I be outraged," she asks, "wasn't he seeking to vent his desire as I do mine?"

What stays with one about the film are memories of a luminous Azmi, dark eyes charting unplumbed depths of pain. Or of a sparkling Das, in this essentially two women and the world story. There are no villains here. The Ash-oks and Jatins are as much victims of their milieu as the women are of their gender in a male-superior society. Their vulnerability, their perplexed incomprehension of Radhas and Sitas that do not only not conform but challenge and overturn stereotypes makes them figures of tragedy, deserving of our compassion rather than our contempt.

It is here that Kamasutra falls short. All coitus. No catharsis. This story about the imperious Indian princess and her handsome husband, the King, about her beautiful maid and her sculptor lover remains at the level of fable rather than feeling. The still-gorgeous Rekha playing Rasa Devi, the Kamasutra teacher, tempts with that Jamini Roy visage, the canopy of abundant, damp, dark tresses set off by cunningly arranged frangipani blossoms in terracotta pitchers placed in the camera front. Or with intermittent, sexy, heavy breathing-cliched utterances to varied female pupils. Storyline in short: beautiful long-held-in-contempt maid, Maya, silently resentful lifelong recipient of Princess Tara's hand-me-downs decides to shop soil princess' would-be groom before the wedding night and triumphantly informs Princess of her caper, whispering that henceforth she's condemned to use HER hand-me-down for the rest of her life.

That's the wafer-thin storyline. For the rest, suicidal Princess languishes, recovers sense of self-worth; maid Maya rises to be King's courtesan, sculptor Jai's paramour. King discovers the alliance and orders sculptor's execution. Distraught courtesan, mute and helpless, walks away to the strains of a swelling, soaring musical score into a radiant dusk shot with gold.

Amber, Khajuraho form the picturesque backdrop for this film that you admire from the head, never from the heart. You remember the exquisite plumage designed by Eduardo Castro, the opulent hairstyles, the musical tapestry that weaves everything from full-blooded Shubha Mudgal to wine-soaked strains of Iqbal Bano, mesmeric Vilayat Khan and L. Subramanium into one compelling whole. Cinematographer Declan Quinn excels, proving to be a veritable painter of light.

And yet the film doesn't stay with you. For Kamasutra is more peopled by props than people, who, sadly enough, remain at the cardboard and paste level. The cast, competent actors all, try to rise above their cutout dimensions but are let down by a script that is more map than matter. A film that was all camera, no core. A triumph of myth over matter.

Finally, a word about The Square Circle or Daayare. The film starring Nirmal Bandit Queen Pandey, directed by Amol Palekar, was the also-ran of the festival. Dull, stolid, cliche-ridden, trite. Unfortunate, for the theme of the cross dressing man had potential but why must he overnight turn heterosexual, die protecting maiden turned paramour overnight? That 90-degree turnaround, was accomplished with typical-of-Mumbai-film-maker airheadedness-and-let-logic-go-to-hell nonchalance. Pan-dey's histrionics are below par. Palekar in his innocence probably fancied a film with such a controversial subject, never mind lack of intellectual substance, would be a natural walk-in proposition at the Festival. It proved to be a walk-out proposition instead. Credit, if any, must accrue to Palekar strictly for intent rather than its execution.

All eyes are now trained on Mehta and Nair, both of whom are readying themselves for showing their films at the prestigious London and New York film festivals next month. After which begins what Nair aptly describes as the "rape and pillage" tour to sell their film to overseas distributors all over the world. Including India. If God and Censor Board be willing!