Category: 2023

May December

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I got into the film not knowing anything about the story line. I just knew, with actresses like Portman and Moore, I was in for a treat. The acting is superlative – I was not disappointed in the least. The story and the performances got into my head like a drill, though. It was all terribly jarring.

When I watched Animal, the other day, I was not at all unnerved by the performance or the story line… there was nothing to set your eyes aflicker and your mind shake. It was just blood and gore. But this film got to me – it made me look at things deeply and wonder once again of what humanity is capable and incapable of in terms of feeling and consideration.

The film is based loosely on a woman who was convicted with statutory rape. She eventually married the boy who she had been involved with when he turned 21. The premise is well drawn out by Natalie Portman playing the actress who would assay the role of “Gracie” played by Julianne Moore.

Moore plays Gracie with unabashed depth – from a capable housewife to a nervous wreck. She plays the role with a conviction of love. She was in love with her son’s twelve-year-old best friend, and she is still in love with him, as he is now her husband and the father to three of her children.

Furthermore, she takes no responsibility though of her being the adult when they first had sex, insisting that he as a 12-year-old had more control over her than she did on him. However, that is cleverly negated by the way she controls the choice of her daughter, when the latter is choosing a dress for her graduation.

Natalie plays Elizabeth, a method actress who comes to the household to study Gracie and find out more about her life. She seems innocuous enough and yet, from the beginning, we know that she has already judged Gracie and Joe, her husband. She has made one into the perpetrator of a crime and the other a victim.

But there are two instances in which her character dissolves into callousness. One is where she responds to a question about sex in a theatre workshop. She shuts down the person who asks her the question, by describing in detail what she believes happens on set during a love-making scene. By the end of it, she has taken control over the class and has achieved the desired shocked silence. The second one is more insidious. She tells Joe that he can have a life without Gracie. Then she initiates sex, knowing fully well that Joe has not the emotional wherewithal to deal with the guilt and the sensation of being with a woman other than his wife. He is actually ecstatic after the sex and has the only smile in the entire film then. Elizabeth however shuts him down, by saying hookups are what grown-ups do all the time.

Joe’s character is poignantly assayed by Charles Melton. Handsome and naïve, he is the father of three who never knew what it was to be a regular teen. He is afraid of the fact that without his children, he would have nothing in common with Gracie. The most brilliant piece of acting comes when he confronts Gracie after cheating on her. He wants to have a discussion with her about what happened in the past. He wants Gracie to admit to some responsibility to what happened to him when he was 12. She refuses to let that happen. She gaslights him into silence and leaves the discussion with him weeping on the bed. He suffers – because he regrets missing out on a part of his life – and is caught up with a sense of loss – and envy. He yearns to be the monarch he sets free.

The film makes you think… I ended up feeling sorry for everyone in the film and found myself amazed at the complexity of human lives. It makes us introspect. How many of us have abused our power in relationships? What arbitrary lines must people in love follow? Who sets these lines? Who deserves more control in a relationship – a man or a woman? Who decides what is victimhood? Todd Haynes has done a masterful job of tackling a disturbing subject and not creating a binary that is easy to follow. It makes you wonder about victims and villains, and come to the conclusion that life never allows anyone the luxury of simple justification.

Animal

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

It’s not a great movie like everyone is making it out to be and it is not a terrible movie as the others are saying it to be. It’s like the same alpha male movies everyone is making these days. All the bearded heroes step forth please. Pushpa, KGF, RRR – they all seem to sport a similar feel. No? Ok.

The story line is simple, the quest is hot-headed and personal. Women are treated like… the way most women in the country are actually treated. I will say one thing that won’t sit well with most people, women don’t go for the poets, they do go for the alpha male. In fact, rocky aur rani said the same thing in a funny, more stylised way. Many women I know were okay with the movie – so there you have it.

I’ll make one more reference that keeps coming to my mind…Kill Bill. The woman was the protagonist, but she was decidedly alpha. And I must say Tarantino made the movie a spectacle. Reddy doesn’t have that finesse, but he is certainly aiming for it with his big gun.

But a woman doing that here? Will it work? The days of Khoon Bhari Maang are over. They don’t seem to be returning… For instance, Tripti Dimri is lovely. She is brilliant. She played Qala. The Mother/Daughter equation didn’t work as well as the Father/Animal equation. But her character’s arc, particularly being told to “lick shoes to get famous,” highlights the film’s flawed handling of women. The mother-daughter dynamic pales in comparison to the father-son (animal) relationship. I also see other flaws like the overt misogyny, religious politics, and sexual innuendos, hinting at themes like the Oedipal complex without fully exploring them.

I would never make the mistake of thinking that Ranbir Kapoor’s character, Ranvijay, displays a protective attitude towards his sisters, interpreting it as familial care rather than misogyny. This portrayal can indeed be seen as deeply rooted in patriarchal notions. His aggressive protectiveness and dominance over his sisters’ lives, decisions, and autonomy reflect an ownership-based attitude rather than genuine respect for their individuality.

This type of ‘protection’ reinforces the idea that women need male guardianship, subtly stripping away their agency. By controlling his sisters’ actions under the guise of protection, Ranvijay’s behaviour perpetuates the idea that women are fragile and need to be policed by men, which is a form of subtle but pervasive misogyny.

Thus, while some may claim that his actions are well-intended, they stem from an ingrained belief system where men hold authority over the women in their families, making his attitude clearly misogynistic in nature.

So Reddy was making the movie to angst out feminist critics? but why? Make three movies to make some women look bad? I mean, could that really be true? If it is, well, it’s not alpha behaviour. And if it isn’t, then he’s investing three parts to tell one revenge saga that had no real provocation… I mean, bobby Deol seemed to have more in terms of provocation than Ranvijay… but I am not going to delve deeper – I mean it’s not possible to delve deep into that at all. Because Sandeep Reddy doesn’t want to waste his time in doing that either. Bobby’s is just another daddy issue – but in this case, the father actually died a ghastly death.

So technically, if you see it through a very literary sense (cough) the eponymous Animal is Abrar. Not Ranvijay. He fornicates with his new bride in the women’s quarters. He slaps his wife in a foursome to shut her up. It’s quite what Vanga probably wanted Ranbir to be, but showed some restraint?

(That scene with the psychiatrist though. What is the thought process of representing psychology as being rooted in sex – wait, was the hint towards an Oedipal/electra complex there? Nah. That was my major irk and probably the only one I had while watching the movie… wait, no… I had several.

Dialogues related to big hips, wine, tops doing all the work, cheating not as hurtful as murder, murder the only answer to everything, the villains being Muslim, the heavy attempt to show all religions as silly, but clearly politicising one particular one and several other current totalitarian ideologies… er, I could go on. But I’ll stop.)

I didn’t get bored in the movie. The punjabi men were all good looking, and Bobby Deol was a great villain. I was like Anil Kapoor, not interested but invested and wondering what the hell is wrong with Ranvijay. I mean, wtf. I have daddy issues but I guess I took the opposite route and turned out to be a poet.

I saw it because of all the hoopla. Also, because every artist must have the right to create his – piece. Yep, it kept me entertained for a few hours, but I am not interested in the sequel. I was intrigued by the negative/positive publicity tug-of-war and I saw it.

Now I wait for The Archie’s on Netflix.

P.s. Davy Grewal was really good to look at. Did I mention Tripti? Oh, yea. I did.

P.P.S. People who liked the movie think this is a positive review. I just like to think it’s an unbiased one.

Lazy

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Last night, I was speaking to a friend (let’s call him Dan) and he was talking to me about his ex and their breakup. In all the turmoil and the revelations, he also let on that his ex believed that Dan would hook up with me. I admit this is not the first time I have heard shit spoken about me, and it certainly won’t be the last. Through the years, I should be used to it all. I mean I have gone through it all – the browbeating, the bullying, the dad trauma, the laughter, the taunting and the trolling of late. People around me usually state that it should get better – I should have a toughened skin now. Sticks and stones and all that shit.

Lately, a sixteen-year old boy ended his life because of online trolling. I can imagine what he must have gone through, where faceless entities rail at you to die because of who you are. Some of my friends even wrote in privately when I shared some of his posts calling out his bullies. They basically said that it was sad, but he should have understood what social media was all about. He was setting himself as bait to be trolled. I found myself looking at myself in the mirror. What had actually changed since the thirty-three years of my coming out?

Basically, people are shit. Narrow-minded and petty. They just generally cannot understand anyone who is different. If a gay friend comes to my home, and we have conversations, we must be having sex to the outside world. If I walk with a swish and a swirl, I must be the bottom in bed. If I call out religious bigotry, I should not have an opinion because I am an atheist. I cannot tell someone older than I am that they are wrong, even when they are infringing the mental peace of someone else. So very seldom, when I have no energy to explain the depth of who I am – I just say what comes the easiest by means of an explanation.

I write, sketch, photograph, blog, and can hold a conversation and an opinion. I used to be an exponent of Kathak. Furthermore, I am liked by a lot of people. I have a large following on social media. It is because of who I am. But many people do not understand how do I not wish to earn money out of the various talents that I possess. People do not understand why I do not wish to showcase these talents and do what most people would do: exhibit and earn from them.

Sigh.

So today, when a guy asked me why I didn’t put up my art and my talent out there, I say what I have learnt to say by my elders. I am lazy. I take the negative connotation and I let it rest. But then, one of my partners, who has known me now for nearly four years, says that I am lazy. Dan said something to me, because he owes me no allegiance. His ex knows nothing about me. So they can assume what they will. I told Dan last night, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks about me, it matters when the people I love do not understand me. It is terrible.

One of the reasons I left dance it was because I did not want the limelight. I was and am a brilliant dancer. There is no ego in this statement. My Guru saw that in me right at the get-go. In six months of my training, I was put up on stage. I joined dance because since my childhood I always wanted to dance. But I was never allowed to, being a boy from a Sikh household. I gave up the idea of it in my teens. But then I fell in love with a Kathak dancer and when he left he broke my heart. So I plucked up the courage and walked into my guru’s home, one evening, and asked if I could start dancing. I was just turning 22.

When I spoke to her, I told her clearly, that I just wanted to dance, and I wanted to learn it. I had no desire to perform or to be put up on stage. She didn’t understand that. If I had talent, I was meant to show it to the world. I never understood that. I still don’t. The world did not matter. I was dancing because I wanted to be close to someone I loved. So after a decade of trying to make everyone happy, I realized it mattered more to be true to myself. I gave up dancing.

I could have taken up another teacher. But I just could not.

I love sketching portraits. I had a devastating heartbreak in 2020. A month later, I struggled with anxiety and panic attacks. I tried to divert my mind with art. I began sketching a portrait of Galadriel. It’s a beautiful frame. It is when she looks upon Frodo and tells him to go on a quest and find the strength from within. I can be quite allegorical. But I could not complete it. Depression set in hard. I struggled with it…still am. It has been over three years. Whenever I get back to it, I think of the time that induced me to begin it. But when I begin something, I always finish it. So I made my very first new year resolution, in 2023. That I would complete it before the year ended.

This year however has had its own twists and turns. In comparison to the last two, this one is dulcet. But it has been a calm one, comparatively. And the problem with me is that the time I have to myself seems to be less. Especially because of the first years of a relationship. The last time I opened the sketch to complete it, I found myself holding my mechanical pencil in my hand, staring at the circlet around Galadriel’s head. The man who I loved loved The Lord of the Rings, too. But I had found love again. I finally found closure as I stared at the unfinished piece of work in front of me. I closed it and returned to daily life.

“Lazy” is such an easy word. Depression and recovery, anxiety and self-doubt, love and loss, are such difficult ones. I understand some, I try to understand others. I wish the world was not so quick to label and blame and troll. There are hearts out there, who just want to be free to live and find their own version of happiness.

But December is my favourite month. So hopefully, it helps me in my quest to fulfil a resolution.