From Neel, With Love is a sensitive attempt at depicting a gay existence – complete with its trials and joys.
Neel is a kind, gentle, perceptive man who reads in public cafes, writes poetry in his journal, and volunteers to gather funds for an NGO for the blind. He leads a quiet existence. Tamas is an extroverted, unreserved man who lives off by exhorting vulnerable gay men. He leads a dark, duplicitous existence. The men are the antithesis of each other. If Neel is the angel, Tamas is the monster.
If one examined these activities in isolation, there would be nothing out of the ordinary about them, but it is precisely the gendered nature of their existence that lends these actions significance. Neel doesn’t simply read any book in a cafe sitting anywhere, he is reading Sachin Kundalkar’s Cobalt Blue (2013), the novel that both shocked and spoke to Marathi readers for its multi-layered portrayal of an uncommon conflict in the life of a common man, while occupying a table on the patio with nobody around. When he is travelling in the metro, he either is standing alone like an outcast, or if he has decided to sit, he breaks into sobs suddenly. These are all signs of a precarious existence. His grief is overbearing.
The men whom Tamas exploits are vulnerable just as he once was, and in a big way, still is. His way of dealing with his own grief and misery is by inflicting torture on others.
Underneath the moral, didactic nature of the film, are these occurrences that show what it means to lead an alienated existence.
Read LessNeel is a kind, gentle, perceptive man who reads in public cafes, writes poetry in his journal, and volunteers to gather funds for an NGO for the blind. He leads a quiet existence. Tamas is an extroverted, unreserved man who lives off by exhorting vulnerable gay men. He leads a dark, duplicitous existence. The men are the antithesis of each other. If Neel is the angel, Tamas is the monster.
If one examined these activities in isolation, there would be nothing out of the ordinary about them, but it is precisely the gendered nature of their existence that lends these actions significance. Neel doesn’t simply read any book in a cafe sitting anywhere, he is reading Sachin Kundalkar’s Cobalt Blue (2013), the novel that both shocked and spoke to Marathi readers for its multi-layered portrayal of an uncommon conflict in the life of a common man, while occupying a table on the patio with nobody around. When he is travelling in the metro, he either is standing alone like an outcast, or if he has decided to sit, he breaks into sobs suddenly. These are all signs of a precarious existence. His grief is overbearing.
The men whom Tamas exploits are vulnerable just as he once was, and in a big way, still is. His way of dealing with his own grief and misery is by inflicting torture on others.
Underneath the moral, didactic nature of the film, are these occurrences that show what it means to lead an alienated existence.
