First time in the history of Hindi cinema, a film has been made on disability and sexuality together. In films made by Indian filmmakers, especially Bollywood, disabled people have always been sympathised with, instead of being empathised with. They have always been portrayed as victims who are dependent, sometimes even at the mercy of other able-bodied people. This culture of being branded as “helpless” people has been shown the middle finger quite literally in this film by the lead protagonist herself. Disabled people are often portrayed in Indian films as genderless people hence devoid of sexuality. Comments like “sex is the last thing on their mind” only adds to the otherisation of the community.
This film talks about sexuality – a fundamental right of any individual irrespective of whether they are abled or disabled, though never for once making it crass, crude or vulgar. Sex & sexuality are two different things while the mainstream Bollywood focuses more on the former, this film focuses more on the latter, hence the intimate scenes are a lot more tastefully executed as highlighting the sexuality of the central protagonist, was the endeavor and the not the act itself.
Heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality as well as autosexuality all are themes that have been talked about in this movie. One of the most progressive films of this century, ‘Margarita With A Straw’ never for a second bores you. At just over 2 hours, it is a breezy paced film and even though, it talks about such deep and pertinent issues, it never for a moment takes itself too seriously and becomes preachy. The detailing of the film was simply minute with every object in the scene symbolising or adding to the scene or taking the story forward.
The music of the film is a major strength. There is tremendous diversity in the entire soundtrack of the film. There is a catchy rock number called “Dusokute” by Joi Barua bringing in the North Indian Eastern flavour. Then there is a song called “Foreign Balamwa” in Bhojpuri which is a funky-catchy fun dance song. It also has a melancholic song, “Choone Chali Asmaan”, which is also the original title of the film in Hindi, sung by the amazing Rachel Varghese who has a voice smoked in vodka. All the three songs have been penned by Prasoon Joshi.
The editing of the film was one of the film’s major strong points – at certain places the scenes have been allowed to linger on at a languid pace so that the audience gets absorbed in its world, whereas in other instances, the editing has been rather crisp. Cases in point: scene where Kalki Koechlin’s character masturbates and immediately the scene is cut to a store owner doing “aarti”, Kalki’s character landing in America and while getting on the bus, the ramp comes out showing how the West is a lot more disable friendly than India, a scene in which she is able to break an egg successfully into a frying pan then cut to all the mess beside the pan that’s been created, thus highlighting the number of attempts it took her to get it right or a shot of a comb with which her mother used to comb her hair right after a tragic incident in Kalki’s life and many more are examples of how this film uses tools like editing to tell things which other lesser films would tell through dialogues.
It’s minimalism that Shonali Bose adopts in making this film rather than drummed up melodramatic high octave populism. The character has been humanised completely. She isn’t your stereotypical Bollywood lead who can do no wrong. She watches porn, casually makes out guilt free with a male friend, gets into a lesbian live-in relationship with a blind girl and then ends up cheating on her with a man in a moment of lust, her reasoning being that the person could see her while making love to her. Yet the audience will not judge her, they will relate to her even if they do not agree with her choices and that’s what makes her human. In all this – her journey, her crushes, her academic successes, her carnal activities make you forget that she is disabled. She is as empowered as any of us are. All said and done, the best part and the film’s biggest strength is the mother-daughter relationship being portrayed in the movie. The mother though at times invades the privacy of her daughter like all Indian mothers do, is her biggest strength and support. Though at times, she disapproves of her life choices initially but she is open minded enough to see reason and logic and more than anything else – her daughter’s happiness.
Finally we all must stand and applaud such a committed, earnest and dogged performance from a fine actor who just went on to another level with a potentially National Award winning performance. Never for a moment did she feel pity for Malini, the person on whom this biopic is made and that showed in her unflinching spirited unapologetic portrayal of an extremely well written role. All that can be said is ‘Margarita With A Straw’ is an extremely important film of our time. More power to films like these!
Disclaimer: The preceding article was solely written by the author named above. Any views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by KiaGia.com. Questions or concerns about the preceding article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment below.
