When French gay thriller L’inconnu du Lac was released in Dutch cinemas it made me come up with a list of the best LGBT films I’ve seen this decade. But since everyone’s doing it… these are the most interesting, gripping, funny movies that are in some way ‘gay-themed’. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.Defining movies as ‘LGBT’ or ‘gay-themed’ is in fact a bit stupid, as it has nothing to do with a genre at all. He tweets at all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. How sadly ironic that a film which talks of bridging the gap is isolated from its creator. I am told the director has distanced himself from the film. Now it streams without even a whimper of publicity or marketing. After its completion the release was repeatedly postponed.
Funny Boy remains blacked-out by Netflix India while it has been shown in the rest of the world by Netflix.Ĭobalt Blue too has had a rough journey. This brings me to Deepa Mehta’s 2017 film Funny Boy about a gay Sri Lankan boy growing up in his war-torn country. Tanay finally escapes his hometown and we see posters of Deepa Mehta’s ground-breaking film on lesbianism Fire being plastered on the wall. Neil Bhoopalam gives the best performance of the film as Tanay’s anguished closeted gay teacher hankering for a release. What stays with you after the film is its unspoken lyricism, its unstrained depiction of same-sex love in a conscripted society. The twists and turns in the plot are not always believable or even logical. With its low aspirations Cobalt Blue hits some right notes, especially in the scenes where Tanay is shown getting physically and emotionally close to the shirtless and, eventually, worthless guest who, believe it or not, elopes with Tanay’s feisty hockey-loving sister Anuja(well played by Anjali Sivaraman). Most of the time Mahendale looks high on something, and it’s not love. The fallow young protagonist Tanay, played by Neele Mehendale, who falls for the nameless guest (nice touch, to keep the catalyst nameless) is again not quite the Timothee Chalamet that the script expects him to be. Repeated references to him by the characters as some kind of an ideal male-gaze material doesn’t quite convince us. Unfortunately, Prateik Babbar is no Armie Hammer. As in Guadagnino’s film, the film is set in an insanely idyllic coastal town, Kerala in Cobalt Blue, where a Marathi migrant family takes in a house guest.
In some vital ways it reminded me of Luca Guadagnino’s highly acclaimed hugely successful (in fact the only commercially successful gay film in recent history) multi-Oscar winner Call Mr By Your Name.
That the novel (by the director Kundalkar) in Marathi was published in 2006 when Article 377 was a living reality, makes the film all the more relevant, resonant and finally deeply ruminative in spite of the flaws. Sachin Kudelka’s Cobalt Blue has its flaws, but it is an important take on the male gaze.