Apologies, I had hoped to finalise the films for this coming Sunday's GB Film Screenings, but just yesterday a friend gave me some very new and little seen films for the screening, and I'm still working my way through them. But one which I saw is definite or the first film because. while in some ways it might seem very far - literally - from our experience of being gay in India, in a few crucial ways it is very close.
'Nights in the Gardens of Spain' is from New Zealand, where we don't get many films from - which is a pity given their sexy cricketers and rugby starts and super hunky Maori men! This film, which has the alternative title of 'Kawa' makes up for this by delivering a lot of the last item. It is based on a semi-autobiographical story by the gay Maori writer Witi Ihimaera. Kawa, played by the very handsome Calvin Tuteo, might seem to have it all. He seems to have his feet firmly and successfully in both the Maori and white New Zealander worlds. He is Maori himself, the son of a leader of a clan who is poised to take over that leadership himself when his father retires, as he is about to. He works in a shipping company started by his father, and its obviously a successful job since he has a fancy office and a big house where he lives with his white wife and their two kids - an adorable young daughter who the father is clearly nuts about, and a very hunky older son (played, for those into TV serials, by Pana Hema Taylor, who's one of the stars of the new season of Spartacus) who is training to be an Olympic swimming champ (and one of my few criticisms of the film is that while we get some shots of the son training, they are hardly enough!) But right from the start you get a sense that things aren't going well, when you realise that Kawa has actually moved out of the house and only comes home to put his daughter to sleep. He hasn't given his family any reason why he now has his own place, and his wife is getting increasingly angry about this. The rumours are also spreading to his office and to his Maori home in the countryside, but no one knows the reason. And we get to know - OK, we know its a gay film, so we know why, but the film strings things out - when we see him going to a theatre show even though he doesn't like theatre. What he likes is the lead actor, the very hot Chris (played by Dean O'Gorman who was in Young Hercules, and is in the upcoming The Hobbit). They're having an affair, and Chris is nuts about Kawa, but also increasingly frustrated at being excluded from his life and unable to acknowledge what they have in public. Matters come to a head when Kawa and his family go to their village for his father's retirement and Kawa taking over as clan chief (cue a haka, the New Zealand warrior dance which is a good fun and even advances the plot a bit in its last shot). Chris can't bear being separated and comes along, not to the house itself, but just to meet Kawa on the beach where he's told, fairly brutally by Kawa that he shouldn't be there. He leaves, but not before their embrace is seen by someone and things unravel from there. This may sound like its going to lead to lots of stereotyped drama and a tragic climax, but the film generally avoids these to focus on the emotions of the family - Kawa's combination of guilt and anger at having had his life dictated by the expectations of his family and society, his wife's initial non-comprehension, then total shock and revulsion, the son's confusion which is mixed up with his own adolescent issues of growing up, falling in love and experiencing rejection and the daughter's anguish at being separated from her beloved father. Many gay films focus on the open gay character who is sidelined in these family dramas, but here the focus is very clearly on the family and how it must cope when the central person in it is suddenly shown to be what he is not. And this is something really universal, whether in New Zealand or India. The rhythms of Maori culture may be exotic to us, but what isn't is the expectations and pressures - and also the real values - that being part of a strong community culture gives us. Looking at Kawa's confusion of feelings brought to mind the many gay men I know who are dealing with just this, the pulls of their personal feelings and their public obligations. In that sense this is a film that will really resonate with a lot of people in India (and hopefully influence younger people who may still have the freedom to avoid landing in the dilemmas that Kawa has landed not just himself, but the family that he is responsible to and which he truly loves and loves him). This is also a physically beautiful film, with its New Zealand landscapes (and NZ men!), the acting is pretty good all around and it really avoids most of the stereotypes it could have fallen into. The NZ accents can be a bit hard to understand and while the Maori bits are, of course, subtitled, there's no English caption equivalent. But that doesn't really matter since the story is strong enough and the situations easily understandable enough, and soon you get used to the accents and can understand. This is really a film not to miss, so make sure you come in time for it on Sunday (and tell friends who may not be reading this listserv). Here's a link to the film's IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1754277/ The Hobbit). They're
