THE SQUARE CIRCLE

India, 1996, 107 minutes, Colour.
Nirmal Pandey, Sunali Kulkami.
Directed by Amol Palekar.

The Square Circle was named as one of the ten best films of 1996 by Time Magazine. It certainly is different, even different from the usual Hindi films. While it is serious in intent, it does not resemble the more serious films like those of Satyajit Ray. And it is more moderate in its presentation than the action and musical films which are made in their hundreds in India.

The film makes a great deal of social comment. It also comments about gender in India, in the cities and especially in the villages and the countryside. It focuses on a man who has been trained to do the traditional women's dances and who wants to be a woman. He comes across a young girl who is mistakenly abducted and who has been raped. In order to protect her, he advises her to dress as a man. The two travel through the countryside and in their adventures, one begins to understand something about the nature of gender, sexuality, and the responses to gender and sexuality within this Indian context.

The film is, to western sensibilities, very obvious in its style. This is especially so in its length and the number of flashbacks in case the audience has missed the clear points. However, ultimately the film is quite moving, especially with the performance by Nimarl Pandey as the transvestite and Sonali Kulkarni as the girl.

1. Audience response to Indian movies? The serious arthouse tradition? The popular Hindi films with their melodrama and their music and dancing? This movie influenced by each tradition? A focus on some realism and naturalism? On the stylised aspects of Indian life and ritual and dancing? The budget of the film? Its straightforward cinematic techniques?

2. The Indian landscapes, the locations? The roads, homes and villages? Ancient India? Yet the contrast with contemporary India, the cars and the motorbikes? The landscapes, the rivers? India old and new?

3. The musical score, the importance of the songs, the dances, the rituals, performance, dress? The songs and the transvestite? Relating to the characters?

4. The title, the introduction, the boys and the dance? The singing, the teacher? The boy and the change of roles? Traditional Indian singing and dancing? The role of women? The role of men?

5. The role of men in India? To marry? Sexuality? Women and their being chattels? Dependent on the family, on the husband? No divorce? The young woman and her being about to marry, confronted by the abductors, her fear and self-assertiveness?

6. The abductors, as a gang, the madam and her wanting women for her brothels? The intended victim and her compliance? The irony of taking the wrong girl, the devastating effect? Their deciding to keep her? The travel in the car, the attempted escapes, the chases, going across the river? The men and their brutality?

7. The girl in herself, realising the error, her fear, wanting to escape, crashing the car, hiding, swimming?

8. Her being raped - and the reprise of this rape and the death? The visualising of the rape in the context of such an Indian film?

9. The transvestite, on the road, performing? Making his living? His seeing the girl, not being able to save her? Bluntness? Her being raped, the decision to rescue her, taking her on the road with him, fighting the rapists? His change of attitude towards her? The flashbacks continually reminding us of what had happened?

10. The reversal of roles on the road? The girl becoming a man - and the rapidity with which her hair was cut and then grown again (Indian conventions) - her being an outer man but an inner woman? Her skill in being a man, work, the garage, the bar, the macho drinker? Her accompanying the transvestite, taking part in the play, life in the village, the songs? The boarding house and the widow being attracted by her, the sexual appeal?

11. The transvestite and the transforming of his attitudes? Outer man? Inner woman? The decision to live and act like a woman? Yet loving the girl, love and the effect, sexual encounter? The possibility of change - or not?

12. The girl and her return to the family, the young woman having married the husband? Their cruelty? The parents and their rejection of her and their accusations of shame? Not believing her?

13. The transformation in the girl, from a sheltered village girl, to the intended wife, to the victim of abduction and rape, to a strong woman? The second rape, the intervention of the transvestite, his injuries, the pathos of his death?

14. The death, his wish to be buried as a woman?

15. The impact of this film, its themes and characters for an Indian audience? For an overseas audience? Insight into contemporary India?