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Journalism of Courage
WALKING every day to school past lush paddy fields in a small village in Ottapallam north of Kochi, two childhood friends discover they8217;ve fallen in love. They linger by the gushing waterfall to pick a butterfly chrysalis off a green stem or take a dip together in the luxuriant well as their bond deepens. It all sounds perfect, except for one tiny detail: They8217;re both women.
Ligy Pullappally8217;s first feature-length fiction film Sancharam The Journey has been inspired by reportage of several tragic suicides by girls who have been shunned by society for falling in love with each other. In this instance, however, the director gets to decide the ending.
8216;8216;It was an article on lesbian suicide in New York-based queer magazine Trikone four years back that set my mind to making the film,8217;8217; says Chicago-based Pullappally, who was a practising lawyer at the time.
Having done a documentary and two 20-minute shorts, she felt she was ready to take the plunge. 8216;8216;I wanted to make a fantasy film8212;a lesbian fairy tale,8217;8217; says the writer-director.
The metamorphosis of a digitally-produced butterfly and a kakkathi an old fortune-teller witch are the main elements that constitute the fantastic nature of an otherwise direct narrative.
But Pullappally8217;s one-hour-47-minute work still cannot be dubbed mainstream. It retains a regional flavour where all the characters speak Malayalam. 8216;8216;I didn8217;t want to compromise by dubbing it since one would lose out on the rhythm of the language,8217;8217; says Pullappally, who has subtitled the movie, which is steeped in local festivals, dances, songs, apparel and matriarchal customs.
8216;8216;Many of my peers urged me to set my story in urban Kerala. But the Kerala I grew up in is lush and rural. I felt it would be more honest to deal with something I know,8217;8217; says Pullappally, who first showed the film in Kerala to a select audience. Now it is scheduled to travel to Kolkata, Toronto, Chicago and Italy for film festivals.
Interestingly, both lead characters Shrrutti Menon Delilah and Suhasini V Nair Kiran are not 8216;stars8217; in the conventional sense. Though Menon has won the Miss Kerala beauty pageant, she was facing the camera for the first time. 8216;8216;Initially, I was nervous. But once I got into the character I never stopped to think,8217;8217; says Menon.
At no point in the film do the characters try to justify why they are attracted to each other. 8216;8216;Fire is clearly the first sensitive lesbian mainstream film. But it tries to justify why Nandita and Shabana turn to each other. Girlfriend is the other extreme where the lesbian is demonised and killed in the end. I wanted my characters to say8212;8216;I8217;m proud to be gay, even if that means going against the tide8217;.8221;
8216;8216;Besides,8221; says Pullappally, 8216;8216;being lesbian has nothing to do with men, it has more to do with women.8217;8217;
