Just Another Love Story (Aarekti Premer Golpo)
Dir. Kaushik Ganguly, India, 2010
Seeing this film at the London Indian Film Festival was a
bizarre experience. Book-ended by Akademi's intriguing dance
performance exploring South Asian gender identity and an
excruciating, enforced standing ovation for the lead actor's
(award-winning director Rituparno Ghosh) passable debut drama role
- it was no ordinary night at the Cineworld Haymarket.
Ganguly's film charts brave new territory in Indian cinema;
blending real life with fiction using the figure of Chapal Bhaduri
as a starting point. Bhaduri, who plays himself with a quiet
dignity that is the stand out highlight of the movie, is an award
winning actor of the Jatra tradition (a type of Bengali folk
theatre where men would routinely take the parts of women in
performance).
Just Another Love Storyfollows a film crew who are making a
documentary about Bhaduri. Their director (Ghosh ) defines as third
gender and is openly having an gay affair with a married camera
man. During the shoot their relationship becomes increasingly
complicated as the director is wooed by another man and the camera
man's wife arrives with some life changing news.
The modern drama is mirrored by a series of flashbacks,
apparently of Bhaduri's life - although whether this is fiction or
reality is unclear. In the Q&A for both his films Ghosh claimed
that their Indian reception had been positive and unproblematic -
but it would be interesting to know how widely released they have
been. The unclear boundaries between Ghosh and Bhaduri's real lives
and the lives presented in the film suggest that the time is still
not right for the kind of openness that will allow LGBTQ people in
South Asian to claim and celebrate their heroes - historical or
contemporary. Even the fictional documentary that that is being
made in the film is being produced by a woman (called Dorothy,
obviously) from a British television channel; thus shifting
responsibility for, and interest in, the 'gay' history of India out
of the country.
Intriguingly, during the Q&A, Ghosh talked about how in
Ganguly's original script, the film-maker is a lesbian. Displaying
an almost Bottom-like enthusiasm for all roles, however unsuitable,
Ghosh would have liked to have played a butch dyke - "climbing
trees and sitting in front of the monitor with my legs open". It is
a shame that a woman's role, and a lesbian one at that, has been
erased from this story - but somehow I am relieved not to have to
see Ghosh's portrayal of a tree climbing lesbian.
Overall, this is an interesting (and long) film. It lacks the
tighter editing and emotional pathos ofMemories in March, but it is
worth a watch, if only to celebrate Chapal Bhaduri - a true queer
icon.
London Indian Film
Festival
