The Square Circle (1996, India)
An interesting film which explores gender and identity in a fresh, albeit sometimes rather lumbering, way. It starts in a prologue, before the titles, showing a young boy training to be a female dancer. But soon, we hear that modern audiences want actual females to play female parts on the stage; so the outlook is grim.
Sonali Kulkarni plays a young woman who gets kidnapped in mistake for some more desirable victim. But the kidnappers crash the car, and she escapes and runs away. Recovering her breath, she discovers a man emerging from a pool where he has been bathing. But as the man dresses, he puts on women's clothes.
The man, billed in the credits as "the transvestite" and very stiffly played by Nirmal Pandey, is not very helpful to the girl at first, and she sets off alone to try to find her way home. We realise that the mysterious helper is really a transsexual.
Almost as soon as the girl has left, she is molested by three men, and raped. The transsexual finds her and this time offers her some comfort. We learn that the transsexual has been married, but always wanted to be a woman and eventually arranged some crude surgery.
The girl asks for help to get back to her family, and the transsexual warns her that travelling alone is dangerous for a woman. They go together, but immediately some other men harass them.
The girl is persuaded to disguise herself as a man; the transsexual steals some boys' clothes, and they go together to a temple, and afterwards to a bar. Sultana, a mature woman, makes a pass at this young boy; the transsexual later gives her some body-language training, and adds a false moustache to her appearance, and she gets a short-lived job working in a garage.
Eventually, however, she tries to go back to her family (having reverted to female mode) but is rejected by her father, who misunderstands her reasons for being absent earlier.
She and her protector then form a stronger bond than before, and things get rather complicated when romantic issues develop. But be warned, there is a rather weepy ending.
The original Hindi title of the film is Daayraa.
HF May 2004
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The Square Circle (Daayraa)
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