DOSTANA - mainstream Bollywood tackles homophobia

DOSTANA is being touted as a breakthrough Bollywood movie but I think it's absolutely typical in its slippery depiction of modern sexuality. After all, Bollywood cinema delights in showing us waxed and bronzed men and women, scimpily clad, gyrating provocatively. But god forbid you actually show two people kissing!

DOSTANA takes this paradoxical attitude to modern sexuality and applies it to gay relationships. So, on one hand, this is a brave movie. It's telling Indian parents not to be so judgmental that their kids are forced to stay in the closet. Surely, loving parents should want an honest and open relationship with their children? But on the other hand, this is a movie that still wants to make money and can't afford to offend its conservative audience. As a result, the two gay characters are, in fact, only faking it. And faking it in such a crass manner that it makes Robin Williams' performance in BIRDCAGE look restrained. The message seems to be: yes, it's fine to be gay, but just so you know, I'm most definitely NOT GAY! In a Western movie - such as I PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY - I would excoriate the hypocrisy and cowardice of the film-makers. But given that this is Hindi cinema I can only give thanks that we are finally inching toward maturity.

So, back to the nuts and bolts. DOSTANA is a movie about young single Indians living in Miami and enjoying a measure of freedom that they wouldn't enjoy at home. Kunal (John Abraham) and Sameer (Abhishek Bachchan) pretend to be gay so that they can share an apartment with Neha (Priyanka Chopra) whose conservative aunt won't allow co-habitation with straight single men. Problems arise when Sam's mother thinks he really IS gay and both guys realise that they are in love with Neha and try to ruin her incipient romance with her boss Abhi (Bobby Deol). The situations are resolved thanks to lots of typical Bollywood broad humour, farcical mix-ups, glycerine tears and ludicrously opulent romantic gestures.

Despite the fact that this movie is written and directed by Tarun Manusukhani, the movie has the look, feel and self-referential narcissism of your typical Karan Johar film. It's all lush location shots, designer clothes, over-styled actors and ludicrous over-acting. Having said that, in embracing his camp sensibility, Johar has finally found a narrative that suits his style and the result is highly entertaining. Let's face it, Priyanka is just a clothes-horse, and John Abraham is just there to flash his well-oiled pecs, but Abhishek Bachchan turns out to be very gifted at physical comedy, carrying the movie until the mid-way mark when Kiron Kher and Boman Irani show up. Irani is a scene stealer as flamboyantly gay magazine editor M - like a Hindi Mugatu for all you ZOOLANDER fans! - and Kiron Kher, as Sameer's devestated mother, has by far the best musical number in the movie, beautifully spoofing her performance in DEVDAS. Admittely, the movie starts to flag when we get into a tortously drawn out denouement, but at least it ends on a high with the dance number "Desi girl" and the first mainstream Bollywood gay (or at least man-on-man) kiss.

DOSTANA went on global release on November 14th.

WATER - the sad lot of Indian widows

WATER is a politically charged film exposing the cruel treatment of Indian widows in pre-independence India.

Director Deepa Mehta explores this alien world through the eyes of a young girl called Chuyia ("Mouse"). Married before puberty, Chuyia finds herself a widow and thus an outcast from society. Her family leave her in a religious house where these outcasts band together, praying for a happier reincarnation, whistfully remembering the years of feast, begging for money and, if young and beautiful, being pimped by a eunuch on behalf of the alpha widow. When Chuyia asks obvious questions - when do we stop praying? - where is the house for widowers? - the other widows anxiously quieten her. She is expected to accept her fate and the belief that merely by touching a married woman, she can pollute her.

As well as attacking the traditional treatment of widows, the movie attacks how high caste Indians treated the outcastes. In a striking scene, a Brahmin (upper class) man tells his son, Narayan - a liberal law student, follower of Gandhi, and the hero of the film - that a whore is blessed when a Brahmin sleeps with her. Therefore, he should feel no compunction in sleeping with the attractive young widow, Kalyani, and forget all this marriage nonsense. To marry a widow, whether whore or not, would be a sin.

WATER works best when following Chuyia's exploration of her newfound role in society. And for me, the real hero of the piece - in terms of an emotional and intellectual awakening - is the widow Shakuntala. Both are played by fine actresses - Chuyia by a young Sri Lankan girl and Shakuntala by Seema Biswas, famous for her role as Phoolan Devi in Bandit Queen. The love story between Kalyani and Narayan felt like a distraction, although presumably necessary to expose the hypocrisy of shunning the widows for being polluting in public but sleeping with them anyway in private. Lisa Ray is just okay as Kalyani - but then she is largely a cipher. But how pleasantly surprising to see Bollywood action hero, John Abraham, give a decent turn as Narayan!

Apart from the performances from Sarala and Seema Biswas, the key strengths of the film are its stunning and atmospheric cinematography and score. Its most obvious flaw is a melodramatic denouement which feels out of step with the mournful tone of the rest of the film. Is there enough here to merit an Oscar? I don't think so - at least not in the year of Volver, Tony Takitani, Pan's Labyrinth. I only hope that the movie has been nominated on merit rather than out of liberal solidarity. Famously, production in India was halted after protests by politicians still touchy about the criticisms of Indian society and the two leads had to be recast.

WATER played Toronto 2005 and was released in Canada in 2005. It opened in the US, France, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Belgium and Singapore in 2006. It is available on Region 1 DVD. I do not know of a UK release date. WATER has been nominated for Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.