Noobody coined the phrase “having a moment” back in 1971. If he did, it could be applied without contradiction to developments in queer cinema. Four years later Sexual Offenses Act 1967 He had a partial decline in sex among consenting men over 21 in England and Wales, and two years later Stonewall movement in New York City. There was queer desire everywhere: in Bloody Sunday, Death in Venice, Narcissus roseacross the classic Women in failureLesbian horror Daughters of darknessAnd gay porn borders Children in the Arena and Rosa de Praunheim’s playful and provocative It is not the homosexual who is perverted, but the society in which he lives. Cooperwho could shake the movies out of his sleep, they become four.
It was also the year in which the first known queer Indian films burst onto the screen, not so much fading away as the dark half century before. Badnam Basti – Neighborhood of Ill Reputation translated – founded by Kamleshwar Prasad Saxena in the novel in 1957, published in English on the road with 57 Lanes and serialized in the most important Hindi literary magazines Hans. He looks at Sarna (Nitin Sethi), a gangster making a living as a truck driver in Uttar Pradesh. The lantern is still held by Bansuri (Nandita Thakur), a woman saved by one of the robbers, but is drawn to a young domestic, Shivraj (Amar Kakkad). A tentative love triangle emerges.
Nothing here is as emphatic as the gay kiss included in the closing paragraph on Bloody Sunday, but Badnam Basti still rocks. Sarnam is shown standing over a sleeping Shivraj, a pair of ball-like necklaces hanging suggestively from his neck as he strokes the young man’s head. A cut to the morning reveals Shivraj getting dressed next to the bed while Sarnam, under the covers but naked from the waist up, sleeps on top. Afterwards, Sarna says to him:
Badnam Basti, directed by Prem Kapoor, arrived at European festivals in the early 1970s as part of a new Indian film package. After that, he remained largely invisible until 2019. “I’ve never heard of that,” said the filmmaker and curator. Shai’s legacy. “There is not even a mention in the Indian film encyclopedia, which tells you a lot about the script and how the story is constructed.”
The discovery of the 35mm print was completely accidental. That type could still fail in the archives of the Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art in Berlin, where in 1971 before it was filed, two US curators, Simran Bhalla and Michael Metzger, happened upon it in 2019. by asking from another director of the same surname.
Markus Ruff, head of Arsenal’s archive, was arrested at the request of US authorities to send a trace overseas. “It’s a rare, and unique, print,” he tells me, his inexplicable attitude allowing the tiniest wrinkle of panic. “Shipping would be a risk.” But it was small, and during the pandemic it was covered with great care online. This in turn attracted information about its history and the funding needed for its restoration. Kapoor’s full 132-minute cut can’t be found anywhere, but the 108-minute version, which was used with newly discovered intact footage and negatives, represents a significant improvement from the footage, which was just under 90 minutes.
Amidst the celebration, Ruffus expresses mild skepticism about the film’s documentary credentials. “The relationship between the two people has progressed over time,” he said. “But you can question it from our perspective. Homosexuality is initiated by Sarman, who is a treasure dacoitdarkness, so it’s connected to him. You feel the boy is something that covers what he doesn’t have: a woman. So is the movie gay or bisexual?
The heritage approach is more pressing than radical. “He showed the queen in a strange way, which is how we India “We have always lived and experienced,” he said.
It’s not just the characters who challenge convention. Audiences familiar with the French New Wave, Nicolas Roeg or the experimental work of Indian cinema will be disturbed by the fragmented structure that flies through time and memory. This amounts to a rejection of queer comic stereotypes common in Indian cinema, which went against the grain. Perhaps the audience was not prepared for the extraordinary visual texture, which was incorporated within the break-up, the break-up zooms into frozen frames, as well as the split-split sequences, in which one half of the action stops while the other runs.
“Oh it was” way Before his time, agrees Heredia. “I think the real reason has been dismissed and ignored, not the material. It’s hectic, right? This is what I say when I introduce the film: it’s queer, yes, but in the end it goes crazy and it’s amazing!”