Hollywood usually projects them as either HIV-stricken saints as in Philadelphia or objects of farce as in Bird Cage. When they try to portray them as human beings as in Jeffrey, the movies usually sink without a trace. So, it's not surprising that Hong Kong has led the way in creating homosexuals as human beings in Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together.Not surprising because, of late, Hong Kong seems to have become the new capital of Hollywood - whether it is in producing Jackie Chan potboilers, lending John Woo's frenetic action style, or throwing up the lissome Michelle Teoh, who may well change forever the image of flakiness that Bond's women carry.The 32-year-old Wong's film is an ordinary Hong Kong melodrama, complete with weeping, kicking, screaming and flying objects. What saves it from silliness is the couple - the gay lovers Jiu-Fai and Po-Wing, played by stars Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung. Christopher Doyle's camera follows the two around Buenos Aires and then to the Falls as they make up, break up and start all over again.Winner of Best Director at Cannes, Kar-Wai always pushes the envelope in his film-making. For, though sex sells cinema, gay sex isn't the kind of thing that brings in the crowds. Even some respectable voyeurs at Siri Fort III were appalled at the film. Even as Happy Together attracted quite a few people, Andrej Wajda's retrospective at the tiny Siri Fort III remained a hot favourite. TV star Kanwaljit, who had planned six months in advance for the six days he is spending at the festival, had flown in with wife Anuradha Patil especially for the retro.Saeed Mirza has already seen all of Wajda. So he was concentrating on soaking in the sun and ``watching people go by''. He had just watched Paper Aeroplanes by Iranian director Farhad Mehranfar. Now, he'll be off to see Professor Irfan Habib in Aligarh for help on Delhi of the 17th-century poet Zafar Jattali. ``But I need Rs 10 crore for it. I have to recreate the whole of 17th-century Delhi for it. Do you have the money?'' he asks impishly. Tamil actors Seetha and Parthepan have a little and they believe in spreading it around. They hosted a Pongal celebration and lunch in the middle of the festival, inviting all. The two have also apparently adopted 13 children. This, after Parthepan lost all his money in making his first and only art film, and vowed never to go artistic again.One man who manages to straddle that divide is Mani Ratnam, who seems to have become like a UFO, sighted everywhere but pinned down nowhere. Apparently, the only place he will be for sure is the Republic Day rehearsals. His cinematographer on his latest Hindi movie, Santosh Sivan, is a little more regular in his 11 o'clock visits to the festival. Thursday's Open Forum on co-production raised some questions that may interest both Mani Ratnam and Sivan. Swara Mandal director Rajan Khosa spoke extensively about the problems of raising finances - even the somewhat-paltry $1.2 million for his film.But what he couldn't understand was why his film, on which NFDC has staked a considerable sum, was selected for the Cinema of the World and not Indian Panorama. ``They must have thought it'll look better if we say it's from Germany,'' commented the outspoken Khosa sarcastically.
