Writer and Director: Ligy J. Pullappally
Cast: Shiruiti Menon, Suhasini V. Nair, Syam Seethal

The prolific Indian film industry comprises two schools of practice. One is the money-raking Bollywood behemoth, which churns out several thousand films a year for a mass audience so hungry for escapism that a tried-and-true formula of romance, family drama, colourful costumes, palatial houses and lots of song and dance is re-worked in endless permutations. The other is the school of Indian art-house cinema with dates back to the work of such deft masters as Bimal Roy and Satyajit Ray.

This Malayalam film, entitled Forbidden Beauty, about homosexuality in Bengal, made by the Indian director, Ligy J. Pullappally, does not quite scale those heights, occasionally slipping into didacticism. But this should not detract from some brilliant scenes which flirt with symbolism and metaphor; always a risky area to venture into in a narrative fraught with so much melodrama. There is a reassuring sense that Pullapally, who also wrote the screenplay, has removed her own strong feelings about the subject from the narrative. Unburdened by subjectivity, the main characters Kiran and Delilah reveal convincing personas which earn the audience's sympathy. The viewer shares the pain of Kiran's unexpressed love; while we struggle a little with, but eventually manage to grasp, the nature of Delilah's confusion and isolation.

The Journey draws attention to the alarming statistics for lesbian suicides among young women in her home state of Kerala. Pullappally said after the screening of the film at the London Film Festival that she had been inspired to make the film by an email from a friend about the joint suicide of two young girls in Kerala. They were in love with one another, and had taken their own lives. Their bodies were found with hands bound together with a dupatta; the symbolic cord with which a priest joins the hands of a newly married bride and groom. Pullally discovered in her subsequent research that lesbian suicide in the region was so epidemic that a watchdog group had been set up in the state to monitor the situation.

Similarly set in matriarchal Kerala, the story begins with Kiran, whose family moves back to their ancestral home from Mumbai. We are then introduced to Delilah, the schoolgirl who becomes her childhood friend. The girls are shown playing together in their respective family compounds--sometimes in the company of Rajan, a young boy who despite his friendship with Kiran and Delilah never gains access to their close-knit world. At 15, the two are inseparable, even studying together; while Kiran develops her passion for writing in poems and short stories, unbeknownst to the girls, is that Delilah's widowed mother has arranged to marry her off to a wealthy doctor whom Delilah has never met. Even today, arranged marriage is the only acceptable means to matrimony in Kerala and large swathes of the rest of India.

To further complicate things, Rajan has fallen in love with Delilah--but is frustrated by his inability to express his feelings to her in poetry. He seeks the advice of Kiran, who finds herself agreeing against her better judgment that this would be the only way for her to express her longing for Delilah. There are some wonderful nocturnal scenes depicting the turmoil in the girls' minds, played out in a classical dance sequence.

All in all, this is a very admirable effort from a first time director who, curiously enough, gained the funds to begin making the film when her Acura Integra was stolen in Chicago. “The money from the insurance company was my seed money and my mother found herself suddenly a part-time producer as she helped me fund the rest of the cash I needed to make the film,” said Pullapally. “The film took three years to make, eight months to research and 18 days to shoot! I wanted to create a positive image of young gay people in India. I have an international distributor to market the film worldwide but I kept India for myself.” Pullapally wanted Indian organisations involved in counselling young gay people to be able to screen the film for free for their talks or lectures.

The film ends with the young Kiran and Delilah separated by their families. Budding writer Kiran feels she is unable to live without Delilah, and is contemplating suicide when she receives an epiphany at a waterfall. She cuts her own hair as an act of self-determination, and decides against taking her own life. Criticised by a member of the audience for making a film which appears to give no hope to young lesbians, Pullapally responded by saying that she made the film for an Indian audience—and that her main message was about self-acceptance, not for Kiran to get the “girl”. Kiran is reborn, according to Pullapally, when she receives her epiphany. The love scenes between the two girls are more allusive than graphic, because the director wanted above all to avoid gratuitous sexual content that might draw in the wrong sort of audience.