About An Intimate Matter Review | Clear-Eyed Drama Interrogates A Woman’s Search For Agency

There’s something incredibly acute and sensitive in how Sandeep Kumar Paul’s debut, About An Intimate Matter, cuts through to scan a woman’s sense of self-worth amidst stifling social constraint. It knows the ever-morphing yardsticks foisted upon marginal bodies that are just thrust through one ring of damning perception after another. Financial autonomy preens itself as rescue but social gaping keeps jutting in. The heroine of Paul’s film, Swarna (Sreya Bhattacharya), is a self-possessed schoolteacher in a suburb in Bengal. She lives with her partner, Driti (Shimli Basu). Within the opening stretch, you get an inkling of her mettle, her quiet resolve. Amidst deliberations of her colleagues to petition for better working conditions, she dares to stand out.

Swarna is strong-willed. She asserts the freedom to respect or snub any ideology. Neither is she keen to overly explain her stance. She’s fine with being the odd one out. She's younger but refuses to be sanded into homogeneity.

However, the aftermath of her choice soon reveals itself to be unsparing. Orchestrated workplace politics launches a vicious morality test at her. Suddenly, she’s summoned before an investigating committee. Private pictures of her have been found on a student’s phone. The matter is deeply concerning because the committee alleges her pictures are heavily objectionable. Wisely, Paul’s script steers clear of ever pointing out what those pictures looked like. It’s described only loosely. These are pictures from a trip she took with Driti. Soon, a cavalcade of unsavoury implications is unleashed upon her.

Premiering in Busan Film Festival as part of A Window On Asian Cinema, About An Intimate Matter casts a ruthless lens upon the myriad ways in which women are pushed into severe judgement. Patriarchal control is immense and immediate. There’s no escape. Either you cave in or defy with the strongest life force you have ever known. Swarna isn’t exactly a radical spirit, though she certainly has no hesitation in not fitting in. She keeps to herself with fierce modesty. Neither is she remotely interested in melding her school business with the preoccupations she chooses outside. She maintains a boundary. But the film presents society as it is, intrusive and conservative and determined to poke itself in. Swarna is economically independent. She lives outside the gaze of her family. But this doesn’t immunise her from the wider array of socially mounted inspection. A single free woman is seen with abject suspicion, an anomaly that incites discomfort. Her mere functional existence puts the bunch in unease.

The committee’s suggestions, prodding into the way she lives her life have no regard for boundaries. Everything from her clothing to her individual choice of workplace to domestic situation is dissected. Her social media profile is rummaged, which she specifies as being a private one. Back home, there’s some chafing between Swarna and Driti. It nags her that Driti is always on call with someone late night. But she doesn’t press for information. Neither does Swarna confess to her the school crisis. She’d like to believe that she’s unfazed, that she still retains her agency. But the minute she’s in front of the committee, she’s attacked for every single decision.

Bhattacharya is absolutely terrific. She’s dignified, steely and unswerving. She’s seething, shifting in her seat. But Swarna is also struggling to hold herself together while she’s battered by the most ridiculous insinuations. She has to maintain an unfazed front, act if the questions placed before her are all in her best interest. The scenes between her and the school committee are among the film’s most piercing. The authorities gently insist it’s not an interrogation even as they relish skewering into Swarna’s personal life. They have no qualms in grilling her. The committee’s sanctimonious air instantly rattles her. The line of questioning quickly goes from needling to brazen to downright despicable. It’s a group of elderly people coaching and bullying a young woman. Interestingly, most of the blunt excavation of Swarna’s personal preferences comes from women themselves who lead the committee.

These are boomers who see Western clothing as provocative and carriers of questionable morality. She’s clubbed into that casket. Swarna is also aware what a wasted battle it’d be to call them out. Her journey is also tied between how she needs the job and what she can no longer put up with by dint of the job.

Paul never dials down on how ugly and invasive the scrutiny can become. It unrolls in a calm, steady and utterly merciless fashion. Swarna is reminded that teachers must set an example. She’s transgressing. Her disruptive choices are sending out the wrong cues. The excuse of virtue and purity is inevitably invoked to underline the strict arena within which she’s allowed to be. The film benefits from its unassuming gaze extending to the central queer couple. It’s refreshing to see an Indian film treat queerness with no fuss. The conflicts and disaffections are pitched in terms of the relationship working or not. Bhattacharya and Basu bring a wonderfully lived-in chemistry. Paul crisply stages arguments between the couple that especially ring out when either tries to reach out for the other later. The stab of ache and longing, in the aftermath of hurt and clashes, is shown from both on two different occasions. By the second, it’s already too late.

About An Intimate Matter lends Swarna the space within herself to clamber towards a complete self-realisation. It’s unflinching, tight and filled with urgent clarity about Swarna’s uncompromising selfhood. Its rage is contained but no less powerful.