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Making film on sexually
marginalized people is almost a revolutionary attempt by a filmmaker in Bangladesh .
Noman Robin’s debut feature Common Gender: The Film portrays the
struggle and deprivation of Hijras, the transgender community in Bangladesh .
It is a movie version of a television drama of the same title. Queer films are
regularly produced in some other countries which depict the psycho-social struggle
of homosexual, transgender or transvestites. Directors like Derek Jarman or
Gregg Araki have addressed the queer issues in their films. Some of the films
made by Pedro Almodovar, Rainer Warner Fassbinder, Chen Kaige, Ang Lee or Wong
Kar-Wai also dealt with the issue. In Bangladesh , the study of identity politics
focuses on the rights of women in a patriarchal society. But other sexual identities
are generally ignored in the art forms. Common Gender is one if the
first artistic expressions that deals with the issues of Hijras, a
marginalized community with transgender sexual identity.
Though Hijras have several forms in sexual identities, in Common Gender,
they are described as children born as males but as they grow up, internal
hormonal change compels them to act like females; they wear female dresses,
behave like women; at a stage, they are rejected by their family and the society
they used to live in. After leaving the family, they are raised within a Hijra community, under the supervision
of a Masi. In the new derived community their names are changed – Susmoy
turns into Susmita or Babu into Bubli. These two are two prominent characters
in the film Common Gender but they have some other friends named as
Tuli, Shakiba, Shakira, Pori
and Tushi. They have a common friend Tota Mia with regular male identity
residing nearby their slum. In a wedding, a Hindu young man Sanjoy proposed
Susmita to be his friend. Through mobile phone conversations they become
intimate. Sanjoy often says if Susmita were a woman. Sanjoy’s expectation increases
femininity within Susmita. She falls in love with Sanjoy. Sanjoy introduces
Susmita with his parents but they scolded their son for having a Hijra friend. After being ill-treated by
Sanjoy’s parents, Susmita committed suicide. The very day of Susmita’s death, her
mother visited the slum. Bubli started missing her mother after seeing
Susmita’s mother. She visited her home in the midnight. Her brother scolded and
beat her for entering home. This incident also provoked Bubli to commit suicide.
In the last imaginary scene of the film, Susmita and Bubli met in the heaven.
The brief storyline reveals that
the director’s intention was not to tell a prolonged story in a classical
narrative style. His focus was to portray how dominant sexual politics
marginalized Hijra community and
which resulted a horrible living for them. Consequently, in one way, some plain
and primary information regarding Hijras
are given in the film – how they collect money from the markets and households,
what slang they use in their conversation and how typically they move and walk
with their unique mannerism and style. But the film also emphasizes on the undiscovered
crude reality. According to the film, born as a male, because of internal
hormonal activity, the child gradually starts acting like a female and then the
child is thrown out from the family. She might be born in an affluent family,
but after being rejected from the family she might have to live in a slum with
other Hijra friends. While living a Hijra life, she is humiliated in every step
she crosses in the world dominated by heterosexuals. She is pushed back from
both male and female corners in a public toilet. After death, she doesn’t get a
room in a graveyard; she has to conceal her identity if wanted to be buried. Because
of discriminations, they might be desperate in their attitudes – they embarrass
people by obscene words and insist them to donate money. But the film also
shows the other part of the coin; like other marginalized people, their lives
are also full of fun – they often dance, sing songs, gossip and play together.
Moreover they have a common understanding of helping each other. Though they
always bully each other but they have intimate friendly relations comprising with
deep love and affection.
The human relationship at one end
and the discrimination from sexually dominant majority from other – the
chemistry of these two components has developed the narrative which would make any
sensible audience involved with the film. The deep passion of Susmita for
Sanjoy or the love of Bubli for her mother has created a humanist story that
transcends the border of sexual identity. This humanist approach perhaps will
make the audience understand the social abuse and the hegemony of dominant sexual
identity have compelled Susmita and Bubli to kill theirselves. After watching
the film the audience will achieve a different look towards the Hijras. There needed an emotional
arousal to bring this change in perception and the director is successful to
make a poignant humanist story.
However, the seriousness of the
plot has been flawed by the popular approach of the director. He has
incorporated a lot of commercial elements to ensure audience presence in the
theatres. Tota Mia, the character set in the plot as a bridge between Hijra community and mainstream society.
Being a heterosexual male, he is closely connected with the Hijras, especially with Susmita. He
brought the news of a show of a Jatra Pala, the popular play form in Bangladesh , and
all Hijras joined him to watch the
play. But we don’t see any Jatra play in the film rather the dance number of a Princess
was picturized which is an item song borrowed from contemporary Bollywood
formula. The film also added some song numbers to attract the audience; however
there was a blunder in the film where a Kawali song is sung in a Hindu wedding
ceremony. Some conventional approaches have made the film abstaining to be a radical
one. Though there was a reference of mullahs to be hostile to the Hijras, but the mullahs we see in the
film were very considerate, sensible and reasonable to them. Even after
experiencing humiliation in everyday life, Hijras
in the film have full faith in God and they frequently remember God.
The most emotional sequence of
the film was Bubli’s attempt to meet her mother. She was beaten and humiliated
by her brother in the midnight. While coming back, she found a mother was
feeding her child in a slum. She requested to the mother to consider her as
elder son who has come back from his daily job. Bubli gives the mother some
money as a gift from the son and requests her to pretend as her mother. Then
she fantasizes the imagined incident of meeting mother – she draws a picture of
her house on air; she remains outside of her house and the slum mother inside;
she knocks the door, the mother replied and offered the son a warm meal; this
fantasizing process ends with Bubli’s huge cry of her failure of meeting
mother. The whole sequence is acted very skillfully. The quality drama sequence
with sound montage of recitation from holly scriptures, groaning Bubli’s clap
mannerism in slow motion ensure audience involved emotionally and shed tears,
just as the slum mother cried after listening the misery of Bubli’s life. The sound of the film was recorded by Rahul
Anand who also composed the background music. In both of the roles he did well.
Dilip Chakrabarti was the best performer in the film in the role of Bubli, as
he carried the whole film to the end with his stunning acting. Dolly Zahur was
excellent in the small role of the slum mother. Saju Khadem’s performance in
Susmita’s role was also good; other actors in the Hijra characters were also satisfactory. But Rashed Mamun’s acting
in Tota’s role should be especially mentioned. The character was always a
relief in the narrative and he performed really well with his types acting.
Rozi Siddiqui in the role of Susmita’s mother and Sohel Khan in the role of the
Masi were failures.
After Susmita’s burial everybody went
drunk to forget the death of Susmita. This scene was also an important part of
the film. Tota drew attention to everybody and mentioned how rich was Susmita’s
mother. He also raised the question why they sent Susmita to the slum – they
could send Susmita abroad. Tota said his mother died when he was young, after
seeing Susmita’s mother he remembered his own mother. Bubli asked Tota to keep
mum as she told in anguish that Hijras
did not have any mother or father and they had fallen from the sky to the
earth. The scene was nicely taken by the cinematographer Jahed Nannu. As everybody
was drunk, the images in the scene went out of focus several times and the
camera moved with hand-held jerks. However, the film included an exceptional
example of owning a Hijra child. The Susmita
and others went to take away an androgyne child from a family; but in spite of being
a low income family, the parents refused to give their child to the Hijra community. This is a positive
indication in the storyline that persistent parents could keep their child with
them, no mater from which income group the family is.
The opening sequence describes
the city life in the early morning – buses are running, cleaners are sweeping
the roads, garments workers are going to their workplace, passersby are
walking, the main road is getting full of traffic, the street hawker boy is
selling stuffs in the traffic signal, people are having breakfast at the
restaurant, and a restaurant worker is throwing rubbish at one side of the road.
At this stage, the narrative enters to the plot from the non-diegetic city life
– Bubli’s mother looks down from the rooftop to the thrown rubbish, her elder
son Raju crosses the rubbish and the DVD salesman calls Raju to complain against
his brother Babu (Bubli) who snatched some DVDs yesterday without payment. Heated
Raju disowned his brother and refuses to payback as the salesman claimed the
money. Bubli’s mother saw the whole incident from the roof. Usually Bangladeshi
filmmakers do not describe the life around the characters; instead they
directly focus on the characters. Sometimes the non-diegetic elements can
increase the beauty of the diegesis. The sketchy presentation of city life at
the beginning of the film has proven the cinematic senses of the director.
The second sequence of the film
was also presented in an interesting way. Two small stories are described here
in parallel cut editing by Hasan Mahadi – the first story is about the comments
of policeman, rickshaw puller, truck conductor and carom players as well as the
comments of Muslim Moulavi, Hindu Brahmin, Buddhist Monk and Christian Priest
towards the Hijras; the second story describes
the transvestite acts of the Hijras –
wearing ornaments and female artifacts.
The cinematographer of the film
heavily depended on top angle shots especially in the dramatic scenes. A few
dolly shots also have been taken from top of the heads of the characters. In
most cases, this subjective camera angle signifies the appeal of the characters
to the almighty to resolve their problems. Excess of top angles could be
reduced with the use of some regular shots as sometimes it seemed unnecessary.
The film was shot in Sony Cine
Ultra camera and was exhibited through 2K digital projection system. The
digital format has ensured completing such a film with exceptional content in a
relatively low budget. However, the quality of the image in the theatre was
found satisfactory. With the help of the format the director tried to add some
effects in post production phase. The animation of the title card was just a
failure. But the last scene was nicely manipulated where we see Bubli and
Susmita meet in the heaven. But, perhaps, it was not necessary to end the film
with such a scene where Susmita raised a question regarding the ultimate
identity after resurrection – male or female? The fantasizing sequence of Bubli
could be a good choice to end the film.
The attempt of Noman Robin to
work with a marginalized community has made the film an exceptional initiative
with alternative content. The film also fills the quota of queer cinema from a
country which has a long tradition of filmmaking. The film indicates that
several issues are there in Bangladesh
society which are yet to be explored and which can enrich the cinematic
endeavour of the new time.
24
July, 2012
First Published in Celluloid, a Dhaka based film journal..
