Pinned
"The immense sea and the sky above, our uniforms, our clumsy adolescent enthusiasm...If I had to choose a colour for all of these past things, I'd choose a deep blue."
Blue (2002), dir. Hiroshi Ando.
Reblogged binnte-dil
Ligy J. Pullappally commenting on comparisons between her film, Sancharram (2004) and Deepa Mehta’s Fire (1996):
“I made this film for a number of reasons, among them is to respond to the Indian film Fire. I enjoyed that film, but found the idea of the women choosing to be with each other because they weren’t satisfied with their male relationships, unconvincing. There appears to be a common misconception that women become gay because of a lack of suitable men. My personal belief is that homosexuality has little to do with either the actions or inactions of the opposite gender. In addition, Fire is an English language film in an urban setting. I made my film to reflect the more traditional gay experience in India. My characters are unapologetically gay and speak a regional South Indian language.
…I made this film in Kerala in the Malayalam language because it is very much a Kerala story. Circumstances, like the one described in the story have happened time and time again in Kerala. In another such story, two young women tied themselves together with a dupatta and threw themselves, together, into a rock quarry. These desperate stories are frighteningly abundant in Kerala. The stories are sometimes reported in newspapers, but most go unreported, as the surviving family members have an interest in keeping the shame and scandal fallout to a minimum. There is a watchdog organization in Kerala keeping track of the incidents, they are that frequent.” [x]
“There are other [differences]. For instance, it doesn’t hit anybody over the head, but the two women in the film are different religions. Delilah’s Catholic and Kiran’s Hindu, but a secular Hindu, which is very common in Kerala, where people are Hindu, but it’s very much a lifestyle. It’s not something that’s advertised but they’re actually two different faiths. The thing is, in India people can find the little things that draw that distinction. One girl wears a cross all the time; you can tell from her jewelry, from her house, from the fact that she prays with her grandmother–things like that. But Kiran you can really tell from the family names, like Priya and Narayanan, that her name is Kiran, that the house is a Hindu architecture, that there’s a basil plant growing in the front yard, which is part of the Hindu faith in Kerala–these types of things. These are two people of different faiths, but at no point is the issue ever about a clash of faith. You don’t really notice that.” [x]