Director: Anup Singh
Cast: Irrf
an Khan, Tisca Chopra, Tillotama Shome and Rasika Dugal
Qissa has two shows across Mumbai and about half-a-dozen across New Delhi and its neighbouring cities. That’s niche even by Punjabi standards. And it’s a clear indication that this film is certainly not for a mass audience. This Punjabi cross-genre film is perfect festival material. It’s methodic, surreal and it begs the audience to engage with its themes beyond its narrative. It’s the kind of film you take home, dissect, ponder or mull over and spend a whole lot of while trying to comprehend and decipher. Its vague attributes are ironically its biggest weakness.
Regardless of its audience unfriendly nature, Qissa is a film well-crafted and conceived. It uses the Punjabi allegory of Qissa, meaning a legend or a folk tale, to tell an emotionally complex story. Umber Singh is a Sikh man desperate to keep his family and life together, as Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus battle it out during the Partition of 1947. As expected, the ethnic cleansing process fractures the minds of people. Umber, his wife Mehar and their children are no exceptions. More so, thanks to Umber’s obsession with having a son, when his wife’s already delivered three daughters. The theme of a broken soul taking his fourth new born child and proclaiming it to be a son, when it’s actually a girl is phenomenal. The premise then is setup so wonderfully. A girl grows up under the shadow of her imposing and delusional father, pretending she’s a man. And then this girl, named Kunwar since she’s supposed to be a boy, falls in love, albeit with a girl. The emotional upheaval in the story is wonderfully complex and intriguing. But all that good, is lost when the writers and director take the brave, but rather stupid, decision of veering the story into the supernatural. Within the framework of the Qissa allegory, you’re free to explore any territory regardless of how bizarre it seems. But in doing so, the writers have also undone the deft power that their story had mustered.
It takes some personal guile to come to terms with this sudden jump of genres in the film. And that is precisely why, Qissa is not the film to watch for an average film viewer. The average film buff will also not be able to appreciate the craft of filmmaking at work in this film. Most of the technical crew on the film is from the West. As a result, departments like cinematography, production design, make-up and music excel at a level not seen in Indian productions. Some of the early pan shots of villagers migrating or the framing of desolate locations is so strangely beautiful and unlike Indian cinema. This technical adeptness really enhances the experience of an otherwise flawed film.
Same goes for the acting performances. Irrfan Khan plays the central character of Umber with the kind of depth and consummate ease that you rarely see in Indian actors. Forget the flawless Punjabi diction, the body language, the use of eyes and just the art of standing in a frame is at its best thanks to this gifted actor. Tillotama Shome plays Kunwar, the girl wrenched by the pressure of being a boy. Her performance is spectacular. Her scenes with Rasika Dugal, the girl she loves and marries, are sublime. The two young actresses have captured the sense of taboo and the irony with perfection. Director Anup Singh owes his actors a great debt.
Qissa is a film about broken minds, social dysfunctions and alternate sexuality in pre-partition India. It has all the trappings of a great art film. But it’s served with nonchalant experimentation. And that is where this fable falls short.
Cast: Irrf
Qissa has two shows across Mumbai and about half-a-dozen across New Delhi and its neighbouring cities. That’s niche even by Punjabi standards. And it’s a clear indication that this film is certainly not for a mass audience. This Punjabi cross-genre film is perfect festival material. It’s methodic, surreal and it begs the audience to engage with its themes beyond its narrative. It’s the kind of film you take home, dissect, ponder or mull over and spend a whole lot of while trying to comprehend and decipher. Its vague attributes are ironically its biggest weakness.
Regardless of its audience unfriendly nature, Qissa is a film well-crafted and conceived. It uses the Punjabi allegory of Qissa, meaning a legend or a folk tale, to tell an emotionally complex story. Umber Singh is a Sikh man desperate to keep his family and life together, as Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus battle it out during the Partition of 1947. As expected, the ethnic cleansing process fractures the minds of people. Umber, his wife Mehar and their children are no exceptions. More so, thanks to Umber’s obsession with having a son, when his wife’s already delivered three daughters. The theme of a broken soul taking his fourth new born child and proclaiming it to be a son, when it’s actually a girl is phenomenal. The premise then is setup so wonderfully. A girl grows up under the shadow of her imposing and delusional father, pretending she’s a man. And then this girl, named Kunwar since she’s supposed to be a boy, falls in love, albeit with a girl. The emotional upheaval in the story is wonderfully complex and intriguing. But all that good, is lost when the writers and director take the brave, but rather stupid, decision of veering the story into the supernatural. Within the framework of the Qissa allegory, you’re free to explore any territory regardless of how bizarre it seems. But in doing so, the writers have also undone the deft power that their story had mustered.
It takes some personal guile to come to terms with this sudden jump of genres in the film. And that is precisely why, Qissa is not the film to watch for an average film viewer. The average film buff will also not be able to appreciate the craft of filmmaking at work in this film. Most of the technical crew on the film is from the West. As a result, departments like cinematography, production design, make-up and music excel at a level not seen in Indian productions. Some of the early pan shots of villagers migrating or the framing of desolate locations is so strangely beautiful and unlike Indian cinema. This technical adeptness really enhances the experience of an otherwise flawed film.
Same goes for the acting performances. Irrfan Khan plays the central character of Umber with the kind of depth and consummate ease that you rarely see in Indian actors. Forget the flawless Punjabi diction, the body language, the use of eyes and just the art of standing in a frame is at its best thanks to this gifted actor. Tillotama Shome plays Kunwar, the girl wrenched by the pressure of being a boy. Her performance is spectacular. Her scenes with Rasika Dugal, the girl she loves and marries, are sublime. The two young actresses have captured the sense of taboo and the irony with perfection. Director Anup Singh owes his actors a great debt.
Qissa is a film about broken minds, social dysfunctions and alternate sexuality in pre-partition India. It has all the trappings of a great art film. But it’s served with nonchalant experimentation. And that is where this fable falls short.
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