Synopsis
The film follows a man-woman relationship,
the woman incidentally being an 'international'
bar singer by profession and the man a filmmaker
and also, the director of the film. If a human
being is the best plot, then Ranu is one thick
plot. Over the past 6 years of filming, she has
moved from one relationship to another, from one
home and even one country to another. After an
extremely modest upbringing in a refugee family,
an abduction, a child, suicide attempts and many
failed relationships later, Ranu is a total contrast
to Shyamal who is well educated, well to do and
of course, well respected. Where Ranu's predicament
as a poor exploited beer bar singer 'inspires'
a film maker to make a film, the filming of 6
odd years makes it quite clear that she knows
her way around in the 'male world'. In a life,
full of men and stories, the director is being
just one among the many. But the relationship
grows with the film as the two accept each other
despite moral archetypes and the film ultimately,
turns out to be a sign of their trust and respect
for each other as human beings. The film is a
compassionate view of the struggles and dreams
of a woman perceived as an outcast and also in
which the filmmaker dares to bare his own dilemmas.
Every festival throws up one or two films
that overwhelm all else and make the festival
memorable. I attended the last Vikalp-Nova festival
in Mumbai and came away stunned by I'm The
Very Beautiful! by Shyamal Kumar Karmakar.
The synopsis did not prepare me for the film
I encountered.
This is a film about Ranu.
In the second sequence itself, through a series
of jump cuts, as Ranu is given the microphone,
she speaks about herself- where she lives, where
she lived, where she was educated, what her daughter
does, what she used to do. She used to sing in
bars, she says and then went onto sing abroad
in shows. You expect this of the documentary form,
a telling of the subject’s story. But this
sequence is located between two sequences that
questions this very 'telling'.
 The
opening sequence is in a dark room. The handheld
camera pans wildly, going across the sliver of
light filtering in through the window, through
the dim bulb, the blue tubelight. Occasionally
a gun in hand appears in the foreground. A door
is pushed open, Ranu stands in a tiny balcony,
laughing as the gun is pointed at her.
The sequence where Ranu speaks about her self
is followed by another sequence where an important
exchange takes place. The filmmaker walks up a
hill with Ranu and asks how old she is. Ranu replies,
thirty. She goes on to add that she was born in
19………77. The filmmaker asks
how old her daughter is, she answers, nineteen.
She waits to catch her breath and says that age
is catching up. The filmmaker answers, It has
caught up, you must be forty five. Shut up, she
says and walks away with the filmmaker.
I'm The Very Beautiful! is not the film
you might expect on the life of a bar singer.
Ranu constructs her story for the filmmaker and
the audience. The reality she constructs is the
only reference for the filmmaker. He does not
attempt to interrogate the truth about the life
of Ranu. But the filmmaker constantly attempts
to bring into the foreground his relationship
with her, as a friend, as an object of desire,
as the subject of his film.
A telling, and unsettling sequence is one that
follows a long chat with Ranu about her family,
her education, her music. The conversation moves
to a shot of Ranu in a lift. Ranu enters her house
and finds it flooded. She gets caught up in the
swabbing and sweeping of the water. As she remains
involved in the mundane, the filmmaker’s
gaze wanders to her cleavage, her bare back exposed
as she squats to clean, her hennaed hand. The
film abruptly cuts back to Ranu showing her song
books and going back to her music and singing.
And there are many such sequences where the filmmaker
makes the audience a part of his gaze. We cannot
stand apart, detached from his desire, his objectification
of Ranu. Our gaze is as violent at times. At other
times it lingers lovingly over her scarred, burnt
body. We stay with her moments of vulnerability,
and cannot step back from her story. We are as
involved, as implicated.
The film travels with Ranu to her family, her
daughter, her lovers, and eventually to her husband
in Calcutta. None of these sequences reveal the
truth about her life, nor are they meant to. But
they do draw us into her sense of her life, her
moments of despair, of vulnerability, of power.
There is more truth in that than in any description
of the events of her life – her attempted
suicide, her marriage, her childhood, her days
of poverty, her life as a bar singer, her lovers.
Confronting Ranu’s sexuality head on, Shyamal
Karmakar ventures into dangerous terrain. Shyamal
is able to be brutally, if not provocatively honest,
with his own response to Ranu’s sexuality.
Towards the end of the film Ranu accuses him of
using her, treating her only as a subject of his
film. She is furious and breaks down. Shyamal
does not resolve this fight, not in the sequence,
and not through the film. She is as much a ‘victim’
to this film as liberated by it. The following
sequence is one where the filmmaker takes her
to Calcutta to meet her husband. Through the film
it is unclear if the husband is the one Ranu truly
loves, or he is the one who destroyed her life,
or both. Or is he one more of her constructs in
her life. The sequence does not end in any resolution.
The film ends with Shyamal Karmakar asking Ranu
if he can ever believer her. She answers, If there
is anyone who knows her it's him.
Shyamal Karmakar provokes, titillates, probes,
listens and foregrounds himself, as a filmmaker
and as someone who shares an undefined relationship
with Ranu. He constantly scrutinizes the language
of the documentary as much as he does his relationship
with Ranu.
And Ranu, tells her story, of her longing, her
loss, her desire with an honesty that is breathtaking.
Surabhi Sharma is an alumnus of the Film
and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune
with specialization in Film Direction. She is
an avid viewer of documentary films.
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