Adult content in Bengali cinema: II
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2003: Stark naked in Bengal
An illustrated history of nudity in Bengali cinema
In the Bengali film Parmapar (2003) Subhra Basu played a young girl persuaded by her grandmother, who had been an art college model herself, to pose naked for the first time for art students. The sequence (YouTube) got past the censors because the scene is too dark for anything to be seen distinctly, except that Subhra Basu is standing and then lying prone, totally naked. Even though this was the first Bengali film with total nudity and the scene got talked and written about extensively, the film flopped and Subhra did not get even one film role in Bengal or elsewhere, not even one requiring her to strip again.
2011: Paoli Dam becomes a cunning linguist
‘Yes, I was completely nude’: Munibor
In 2011 Paoli Dam pushed the boundary even further. Not only did she go completely naked in Sri Lankan director Vimukthi Jayasundara’s controversial Chhatrak (Mushroom in English/ 2011), the scene involved oral sex. The film had a red carpet screening at Cannes’ 64th International Film Festival and was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.
She described the sequence thus to Munibor, ‘See, it’s a full nude scene and I have done it because I was convinced that the scene is required to take the story forward. It isn’t there just to titillate. Incidentally my character’s name too is Paoli in the film! Now Paoli’s boyfriend (Sudip Mukherjee) lives far away and to fill the vacuum she gets physically involved with a young guy (Anubrata)… and indulges in oral sex! ... I was completely nude. So was my co-star and in the scene the girl is getting all the pleasure! ...We don’t wear clothes and make love, do we? Then why should we do that in cinema? Ei nyakamogulo aar koto din (How long will we carry on like this)?’
Paoli Dam did the scene though she knew that the Indian censor board would not allow it and that that particular scene would be available only on DVD. The scene was not shown at the Cannes screening either.
After Chhatrak Paoli Dam received an offer to act in Italian director Italo Spinelli’s Choli Ke Peechhe ,which she rejected because “the sex scene there was forced and [she] was not convinced.” Actresses Nandana Sen and Shahana Goswami, too, had turned down the role.
Paoli describes herself as a very traditional girl who grew up in a joint family and had a very good academic record, She could have pursued academics. It was her mother who encouraged her to take up acting. Paoli is a post-graduate in Chemistry and attracted attention in Gautam Ghose’s Kaalbela.
Jayasundara is an alumnus of Film and Television Institute, Pune. In 2005 he became the first Sri Lankan filmmaker to win the Camera d'Or at Cannes for his film The Forsaken Land.
Chhatrak came at a heavy price for Paoli, especially in the Bengali film industry. Not only did she lose friends because of the nude scene, she lost film roles. Her name was officially removed from the publicity materials of Pritam Sarkar’s Flop-e because its makers felt that her newfound sex-bomb image could harm the commercial prospects of 'Flop-e'.
Rii’s Cosmic Sex in Gandu
My life is so abnormal. I live with my boyfriend who is named Q and directs me in films for which he asks me to suck another man’s cock. They are completely head-fucked.-Rii, quoted by Live Mint.
Rii (Rituparna Sen), who had gone nude for 'Gandu' six months before Paoli stripped, maintained what The Times of India called “a dignified silence all through the frontal nudity debate.” In other words, she did not go about giving statements to the effect that she was the first to have done it in Bengal, or whatever. She was quoted as having said, “Yes, there's lack of awareness about "Gandu" in Kolkata but I don't want to indulge in a petty game of who went nude first. Talking of Indian cinema, Seema Biswas had done it in "Bandit Queen".”
She told The Times of India “I've gone for full frontal nudity in both Q's " Gandu" (2010) Bengali banned and Amitabh Chakraborty's yet-unfinished "Cosmic Sex". Women's sexuality is dealt with in both films and I'm happy that I have been able to use my body for a great cinematic purpose… My characters are close to reality and there's no harm if I keep using my body over and over again to portray the real… I was the first to have worn a bikini on television…Sexuality is all about women power. So far, films have been from a man's perspective… Be it "Gandu" or "Chatrak", both are a slap on society face.”
Rii described Protima Bedi's streaking (naked jogging) on Juhu beach in the 1970s as a desire ‘to break free from the shackles of a patriarchal society.’
Regarding Paoli’s scene, Rii said, ‘I am sure some people, who've seen the footage, will dub Paoli as a porn star. That's because they don't know how else to react. C'mon, the porn industry, with its big budget and professional actors, is also thriving today.’
Gandu (2010)
Gandu is a low- budget ‘art’ film in Bengali, much of it filmed in crisp, well photographed black and white. There is a lovemaking scene in colour. Its DVDs are not available legally in India and, from all accounts, it has not been screened commercially in India.
Q is the pseudonym of director Qaushik Mukherjee. (See Q (Kaushik Mukherjee))
Gandu is a North Indian word derived from the Hindi-Bengali term for derriere. Its nearest English equivalent is ‘asshole’ and it implies a male who receives anal sex.
It was the first Bengali film with full-frontal nudity and the second Indian film after Trishagni. Not since Mera Naam Joker has an actress clearly been seen fully naked from behind either. (Parampar was somewhat hazy. The director and photographer saw her naked; the audience had to guess.)
Audience reaction to Gandu was not very different from that to India’s other famous cheesecake films (Chitkabrey, Rang Rasiya, Mr Singh…, Maya…): they were bored. Many viewers could reportedly not sit through Gandu at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film has also been shown at the South Asian International Film Festival in New York and at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
Mukherjee is reported to have said that ‘70% of [the film had] to be about sex." Most audiences want some sex with a story around it—which Gandu has, and some viewers have even appreciated its narration.
Gandu, Nandini Ramnath writes, was never meant to be released (in India): and it was not. Because its budget was microscopic, what it earns in foreign territories (through the British sales and distribution agency, Jinga Films) more than recovers costs. Chakraborty also subsidises his “cheap [budgets of Rs.25-30 lakh] and dirty pictures about sexual, social or political extreme content that otherwise can’t be made” through films like Tasher Desh (based on Rabindranath Tagore’s play, and exhibited within India as well). He has two label Bangla Black, for offbeat films, and Overdose Films.
Cosmic sex
Amitabh Chakraborty’s shoe-string budget (Rs.80 lakh) Cosmic Sex was premiered to a full-house of at the Osian’s-Cinefan film festival in Delhi in 2012. It was the first feature film that he made after his debut film, the off-beat Kaal Abhirati (1989).
Highmindedness
Nandini Ramnath writes: ‘Cosmic Sex includes ideas previously explored by 53-year-old Amitabh Chakraborty in his 2006 [own] documentary Bishar Blues, about Bengal’s Muslim fakir tradition. A young man named Kripa encounters a prostitute, a eunuch and, most crucially, a female ascetic named Sadhana on his journey of sexual self-discovery. Kripa’s experiences unfold as a reverie amid a mythic landscape that is identifiably the Bengal of wandering ascetics and miracle workers.
Reason for nudity/ sex
“Cults like the fakirs and the Bauls feel that sexual energy is the most powerful force that flows outwards all the time, because of which there are manifestations of happiness, unhappiness and death,” Chakraborty says at his home in Kolkata. “The only way to get out of this is to reverse the sexual energy. You have to go back to the unchanging energy source.”
The sources of this article include
Shoma A. Chatterji, IndianExpress
See also
Adult content in Bengali cinema Adult content in Hindi-Urdu cinema Adult content in Kannada cinema Adult content in Malayalam cinema Lesbian themes in Bengali films Lesbian themes in Hindi-Urdu films Lesbian themes in Malayalam cinema The Cloud Door/ Baadal Dwar
