A platonic marriage?

Kathal: The Core (Malayalam; 2023)

Director: Jeo Baby

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage. Four couples were chosen to have their wedding broadcast on TV. One of the couples was Hèléna Faasen and Anne-Marie Thus. Like a flock of seagulls to the shoreline in summer, journalists worldwide made a bee dive for it. One interesting point that a Chilean journalist was heard telling the world was that the lesbian couple was so ordinary. He had expected them to exhibit in full glory iconography of their sexuality, smut or menageries sexual of nature.

Well, I think that is the problem. Hollywood and our society always stereotype members of the LGBTQI community as sex-crazed people engaged in sex orgies all around the clock. It is forgotten that they also yearn for the same things in life as others: peace of mind, security and knowing what tomorrow may bring. Being gay is more than about sex. 

This Malayalam movie is one of the rare ones, especially coming from a traditionally conservative society, on same-sex relationships. The topic is dealt with civilly without much melodrama and commotion. The character is supposed to be engaged in a gay relationship and does not exhibit the typical effeminate behaviour either. 

Mathew is a respected independent party member who had been nominated as a candidate for a by-election. That is when his wife drops a bombshell. After 20 years of marriage and a 19-year-old daughter, his wife, Omana, files for divorce. In a calm, composed manner, the viewers are slowly told of the issues at hand. 

Even before marriage, Mathew knew that he was gay. He had a partner in the same village. Upon Mathew's father's persuasion, threats and belief that the age-old adage that marriage would solve everything, Mathew is arm-twisted to tie the matrimonial knot. 

Life just dragged on with the matrimonial staying cold except for the mandatory one child. Beyond that, both husband and wife just performed their worldly duties, like Omana caring for the children's upbringing, running the household and managing the ailing Mathew's father and Mathew performing his fatherly duties.

Maybe it was the decriminalisation of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in 1998 many people surrounding queer people got a relief to live their lives. 

Omana decided to get a life for herself and let Mathew live his. The difference in the presentation is how compassionate everyone is to each other's feelings. There is no animosity or overt display of discontent or anger. Everyone seems to accept things as they are. Mathew is not shown as a sex-crazed homosexual. His former partner is just an innocent bystander watching things as they unfold.

Quite unbelievable to happen in real life. I do not think society, especially an Asiatic one, is accepting enough to value a person by his worth and work alone. Other associated features linked to his birth, family, religion and wealth take precedence. Anyone with a different sex orientation or preference, whether they like it or not, has to live a dual existence. They live in a lie with a loveless marriage.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This will never make it here!

Danish Girl 2015

I know this movie will not make its way to this coast anytime this lifetime. Artworks using LGBT issues are a sure ‘no-no’ for the censorship board. The beholders of morality have no qualms in sweeping matters of corruption and another overt disservice to humanity, issues related to sexuality and sex would alert their antennas and they would go that two extra miles to ensure these productions do not see the living daylights in this country.

This film is an attempt to narrate, with artistic licence, as the story is altered to suit the audience’s appetite, the dilemma that a certain Danish painter went through to fulfil her inner needs. Eddie Redmayne (who acted as Prof Stephen Hawking) gives an effeminate depiction of Einar Wegener, an artist who lived in the 1920s who feels that she is a woman trapped in a man’s body. Discovering this when he posed in a female garb when his wife’s, another painter, model turned up late, fights the urge and seeks medical help who finally labels him as schizophrenic.

His wife, Gerda, initially thinks it is all foolhardy, but realises the gravity of the situation when Einar is seen intimate with a man. Einar’s old childhood friend comes to the scene who helps in their problem but also end up being a problem when he confesses his love to Gerda.

Einar, now Lili Elbe, lands in a Parisian clinic where she undergoes gender reassignment surgeries but succumbs to complications that occurred during the second operation of vaginal creation.

In real life, Lili had undergone five surgeries. The fifth one which involved uterine transplantation proved fatal.

The questions here are aplenty. Is there a genetic basis for LGBT? Is it acquired through ‘faulty’ nurturing? Has there been a baseline prevalence all through human civilisation and only now people have the courage to express their inner trapped desire? Is love independent of physical beauty and external biological feature? Can a woman love a man as a man even though of his cross-dressing and his chosen sexuality? Can gays be 'treated'? If they can be accepted into societies all through our existence, how come there is a need to correct this? 

Not your typical flick!

Beginner(2010)
A weird movie with equally weird plot and a dog - always a dog. There is a confused man, Oliver, whose 75 year old father comes out his closet after the death of his wife of 44years to state his sexual preference...

The story is told both in present time after the death of Oliver's father where he is confused about his feelings for a girl he met, in flashback of the time after his father's confession of sexual preference, his boyfriends and his dying days after being diagnosed to have lung cancer. In between are inserted of stories of Oliver's childhood, his relationship with his mother and the sparse relationship between his parents. We are also told of his father's gay feelings starting way back before his wedding but married anyway due to societal pressures. 

We can gather that Oliver slowly comes in terms with his father's needs and his partner.

Oliver's relationship with his girlfriend grows serious but both are unsure about each others' feelings and they decide to call it quits. After some soul searching, Oliver, initially phobic of commitments, decides to give it a go.

This film is not your typical story where there is a beginning, plot, drama, climax and the end. The story is intertwined and it needs certain amount of maturity and imagination to put things in perspective and digest the gist of the message in the story. Christopher Plummer as Olivier's gay father did a good role on his part and many accolades for it.