Milk – Boiling Hot

This is not exactly a review on the film Milk but a small note on the experience pre, while and post the film.
A couple of weeks back, in a newspaper I read about an upcoming film called Milk. It was a two line brief with a small picture of Sean Penn. I found the name ‘Milk’ quite strange for I had no idea this title is based on a real life character called Harvey Milk. But for some reason the word ‘Milk’ struck a chord (in real life I love milk – the drink I mean) and I decided to watch it whenever the film is shown in India.
Fortunately for me, my friend saw the film before I did and gave me a stupendous response, so I set out to watch it.
Harvey Milk on whose last 8 years of life this film is based upon is a gay activist. This film is about his short political journey, but also this film is about acceptance and love.
The first scene where I saw Harvey Milk kissing his boy friend Scott, well, didn’t put me off, for I am open to people in gay relationships but it did seem strange. Scott played by James Franco is such a masculine, good looking man that the urge to see him caressed by a woman is definitely more than seeing him kissed on the lips by a man.
And yet, two three scenes into the film you start accepting the man-man relationship quite comfortably. The affection with which Milk cleans Scott’s wound, or the way Milk cooks a special meal for him seems like a perfect domestic couple and beyond a point their sexuality does not play hindrance to a viewer’s sensitivities.
The political journey of Milk is extremely engaging. You want to cheer for him because here is a man not fighting for gay rights alone but also asking for social acceptance denied to him for being “different”. And you want him to win because all he wants for himself and others like him is to be allowed to live the way they want to.
Sean Penn won an Oscar for his performance and he so much deserved it because his mannerisms and easy smile simply transform him into Harvey Milk. Unlike in our very own films, his mannerisms are never over the top but his effeminate side is completely painted over him.
After my friend and I walked out of the theatre, a heated discussion started over why in India nobody ever dares to truthfully pick up issues in films. Why do we have a ‘Dostana’ as our icon gay film. Why no mainstream actor never takes up a role like this.
His grudge, dismay are all understandable but perhaps not valid. India is a country with people of fragile sensitivities. We have our morals, parents, society as well as conscience to answer to and that makes for a formidable set of people and emotions that stand as barriers to creative freedom of film makers.
One will have to empathise with Indian film makers when you have examples like Anurag Kashyap whose first couple of films never saw light of the day. The man who is being hailed as the ‘Experimental Director’ today is the same man who received flak for ‘No Smoking’. Critics trashed him for being self-indulgent then.
A country where in 80s the lobby of mainstream actors crushed the parallel cinema wave simply because one after the other a Naseer, a Shabana, a Pankaj were taking away one award after the other from right under their nose; where a Shekhar Kapoor strikes big with Elizabeth and never ever finds an Indian subject to interest him; where a British director wins an Oscar for capturing India the way world imagines it to be…there surely is every reason to empathise with the Indian film maker.
C’mon, Dustin Lance Black and Gus Van Sant waited for the 8 years to make this film and this film is not about today. Its about 70s…its taken 30 years for someone to speak up for this minority.
Working out of the system is actually quite easy. I guess to make a great film within societal constraints is surely more challenging.
I am sure 30 years on, India will have lot to say…