A few weeks ago, the Indian cinema-focused Twitter account Cinema Rare posted a list of “some of the trippiest Indian films,” and with wording like that, I knew I had to investigate the whole thing, regardless of how likely I was to agree.* Skimming the 25 titles, I was surprised to see 2 I’ve already written about here at the Cultural Gutter (Aiyyaa and my most recent column on Go Goa Gone). The list seemed even more like a great starting point for works I could bring to our particular and beloved audience, so when I noticed it contained a Bengali film I’ve been meaning to watch for years, I thought “Aha! Perfect for my upcoming column!”

Reader, I may have chosen…badly? Tasher Desh (The Land of Cards, dir. Q [Quashik Mukherjee], 2012) is, I think, either remarkably un-subtle with its admittedly sensible and all-too resonant points or it has hypnotized me through repetition into a trance of agreement and appreciation, and I genuinely don’t know which. When I tweeted that I was watching it, several people responded “Ugh. Why?”, and while watching it that was my sentiment too. But now that I’ve finished it and am sorting through what I saw, I may have come around?

Come with me as I try to figure it out.

The film is simultaneously an adaptation of Nobel-winning poet Rabindranath Tagore’s 1933 play of the same name and (or at least I think “and” is the right conjunction here) a questioning of what a contemporary version of the play should be like and should mean. Tagore’s play (which I have not read or seen) is an obvious parallel both to the British colonizers and to the rise of fascism in Europe. A prince gives up his throne and goes searching for meaning elsewhere (we’ve seen that recently in Indian films on the Gutter too), only to find himself in the titular Land of Cards, where life is so regimented and emotionless that people have been reduced to playing cards, a two-dimensional life with no laughter or music, just shouting and marching. (Read more about the play at the Indian government’s culture site. How’s that for irony?)

Three threads run simultaneously for the first half or so of the film. In the first, which serves as a frame for the others—or at least I think it does? As you can tell, “I think?” is a caveat for most of what I’m about to say in this piece—a playwright in contemporary Kolkata (played by Q himself) wonders if anyone is currently staging Tagore’s work. When told no, he drifts in and out of lucidity on a train platform, and as trains hurtle by, we see his imaginings of staging his own version. The author eventually wanders into a dilapidated mansion—I laughed out loud at this, because tumbledown former estates are a very a familiar sight to anyone who watches Bengali films—where a widow (Rii Sen) peeps out at him from behind columns and eventually brings him tea as he seats himself in a lone chair in a courtyard. By the end of the film, he has a manuscript, I assume his own version of Tagore’s work, and he and the widow depart the mansion and walk down a train track hand in hand. 

One of the versions within this frame is full of characters in jewel-toned period costumes punctuated with clashing swordfights and dramatic poses. We see this only in very short snatches, interspersed with longer stretches of Tagore’s play set in that same palace, full of bare concrete walls and unenclosed plumbing.

The prince (Imaad Shah), encouraged by his drink-addled mother (above) (arthouse star Tillotama Shome, who is most familiar to audiences outside India as the heartbreaking maid Alice in Monsoon Wedding), leaves home in search of a life unburdened by his fate and the expectations on him that it entails. He is accompanied by a friend (Anubrata Basu) who initially grumbles that life inside the gilded cage is still pretty good, but the prince’s quest for freedom prevails.

At almost halfway through the film, a title card interrupts and tells us this is Tasher Desh, a play by Tagore and a film by Q.

The boys awake on the sand on a beautiful beach, delighted with their new boundless joy, but unfortunately they learn this is Tasher Desh, a rigid and colorless place that feels like a barren desert even though it’s close to the sea. Captured by gun-toting guards in European uniforms and makeup that paints their faces as white as paper, the boys try to figure out what’s going on in this new place that is the opposite of the soaring freedom the prince sought. Our heroes, still with the confidence of rich young men who’ve never had to do anything truly difficult, set to work on serenading the women (including Sen in a double role) to realize their own desires—even queer ones!—and then rebel. (Watch the song here.) The film ends with women raising their fists and encouraging others to join them, and the credits scroll over clips of actual news footage of revolts and police and military violence. 

In a piece on the Indian news site Firstpost near the time of the film’s release, scholar Arunava Sinha writes that Tagore’s play deals more with the un-making of the fascist state rather than its creation, and the same is true in Q’s version. Thinking about this in 2023, I feel a lot like the listless prince: we could break free and inspire others to do so too, if only we would take off the blinders and tap into our innate abilities to think and feel. Our powerless mothers (or motherlands, maybe) are exhausted from struggle—Shome, the drugged and listless queen, lunges wildly with a sword at an absent enemy—and even they want us to escape. 

Most of what I liked in Tasher Desh is the visuals. The playwright’s frame is in black and white, maybe to add a timelessness or to reinforce the palette of ink on a page, the world the playwright inhabits? It’s a much softer black and white than that in the card country, which is punctuated with bright red as well. The playing card guards speak in huge block text placed around the screen that looks very different from the standard subtitles. I’ve never seen anything like this, and it’s incredibly effective.

The muted tones of the prince’s world before he leaves home also suit beautifully; they seem stuffy and tired, and it’s easy to see why he feels stifled in this dusty-looking world where nothing happens. The split screen of the historically-set iteration of Tagore’s play isn’t my favorite, but it does evoke the linked train cars (and their series of windows) that roar by the playwright as he philosophizes at the station. Pixelated deterioration appears on a series of images right before the boys leave home (and include portraits of Tagore), clearly demarcating their decision and effectively interrupting the story.

A series of stills mid-motion made me wonder if the stream of the film had frozen. It was just Q playing a simple trick, but it worked. In some ways, this is maybe a visually and verbally blunt, simplistic assertion of the importance of using our brains and hearts as the strongest weapons against pointless authoritarianism. (My reading about Tagore’s play says it was written for children; Q’s sensual film is, I assume, not.) But as I think back on the film, it feels important to hear, especially with the finale rise of the women characters, who are quicker to realize what they’ve lost as their humanity was suppressed. I also appreciate how Q carries the framing device all the way through the film, with parallels between the card people’s rebellion echoing into the playwright and widow. There may be a lot that I don’t understand—most notably the period-set version of the royal characters—but I’m still thinking about it, days after I watched it.

Some of Q’s other works include Brahman Naman (available on Netflix with English subtitles) and Gandu (on Tubi with English subtitles). There is almost a century’s worth of film adaptations of Tagore’s works; my favorites are the much less political Kshudhita Pashan and Charulata.

*  The thread is here and well worth a read if you’re mostly familiar with more mainstream or wide-release Indian films. If you’re not on Twitter, I have pasted it below (with some formatting tweaks to help with skimming). Cinema Rare promotes streaming options within India and of Indian films, and I have put in additional links to the films where available in the US when possible. Wth careful searching, you may find additional streaming options. Films are in Hindi unless otherwise noted.

• Kamal Swaroop’s Om Dar-B-Dar (1988): Fascinated with magic and religion, young Om visits a fantasy city of Pushkar and takes a home at the bottom of a frog pond. Available on the National Film Development Corporation of India site [and also on Youtube with English subtitles].

• Pankaj Parashar’s Aasman Se Gira (1992): A young prince exhausted with leading a lavish life befriends Trishanku, who hails from another planet. Currently not available on any platform.

• Ketan Mehta’s Oh Darling Yeh Hai India (1995): A penniless actor new to Mumbai and a beautiful woman he meets one fateful night tries to stop a gangster from replacing India’s president with a twin.. Also streaming on Netflix. [Note from Beth: this is well worth a watch, if just to see now-megastar Shah Rukh Khan early in his career, then as now as much interested in acting as in being a star.]

• Kanti Shah’s Gunda (1998). No description needed. Also streaming on MX Player. [Note from Beth: this is a famous/infamous film in Bollywood fan circles. I am not aware of it existing with English subtitles and as such do not feel I qualify to say anything further about it other than that I definitely do not get its appeal.]

• Ram Gopal Varma’s Kaun (1999): While alone in the house, a woman hears news of serial killer on the loose. And then a stranger rings the doorbell…. [Note from Beth: this is on youtube with English subtitles, but based on my limited Hindi I’m pretty sure they’re not any good, so I can’t in good conscience recommend this link.]

• Pankaj Advani’s Urf Professor (2001): Chaos follows after a hit-man’s car and winning lottery ticket go missing.

• Suresh Krissna’s Aalavandhan/Abhay (2001, Tamil/Hindi) : A person living with mental illness tries to protect his twin brother from a lady he visualizes as his evil stepmother, and eventually ends up fighting with him. Streaming on SunNxt and Eros Now [and available for rent on Youtube in Tamil with English subtitles].

• Anurag Kashyap’s No Smoking (2007): A heavily addicted smoker is unprepared for the true price he must pay when he asks a guru’s help to kick the habit. Streaming on Jio Cinema, Zee5, Eros Now [and for rent on Youtube with English subtitles].

• Sriram Raghavan’s Johnny Gaddaar (2007): Five men get involved in a drug deal set up by a corrupt police officer. But the plan goes awry when Vikram, the youngest member, decides to discreetly steal the money. Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

• Anurag Kashyap’s Dev.D (2009): Because they come from different castes, the son of a tax collector and his true love are not allowed to marry, sending them down divergent paths. Streaming on Netflix.

• Pankaj Advani’s Sankat City (2009): The film follows the underbelly of a teeming metropolis, featuring an assortment of zany men and women shadowboxing with the vagaries of chance and fate. Also streaming on Zee5.

• Bejoy Nambiar’s Shaitan (2011): When they’re blackmailed after a hit-and-run, a troubled rich girl and her wild friends stage a fake kidnapping with a plan to collect the ransom. Streaming on Netflix.

• Abhinay Deo’s Delhi Belly (2011): Three flatmates get involved in the shady business belonging to one roomie’s fiancé, and discover that a global crime syndicate is gunning for them. Streaming on Netflix.

• Sachin Kundalkar’s Aiyyaa (2012): A woman goes on the hunt for her dream man, armed with her wild imagination, her passion for Masala-films, and her ultra-sensitive sense of smell. Streaming on Netflix and Jio Cinema [and for rent on Apple and Youtube]. [My writeup of this film, which one of my very favorites of all time, for the Gutter is here.]

• Raj & DK’s Go Goa Gone (2013): A group of friends, just looking to have a good time at a rave party on a remote island in Goa, find out that the island is infested with Zombies. [The upload linked in the film’s title here has English subtitles]. [And read my piece about it on the Gutter from a few months ago!] Also streaming on Zee5, Eros Now, Jio Cinema.

• Raj Kumar Gupta’s Ghanchakkar (2013): A safe cracker claims he has lost his memory when two criminals come calling for their cut of the bank heist loot.

• Pawan Kumar’s Lucia (2013, Kannada): A man suffering from insomnia is tricked into buying a drug, Lucia, that makes his desires come true in his dreams, blurring the line between fantasy and reality. Streaming on SunNxt.

• Sanjeev Sharma’s Saat Uchakkey (2016): Seven petty thieves come together to rob an old palace in Delhi. They manage to locate the treasure but fail to steal the treasure due to an unknown force. Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

• Akshat Verma’s Kaalakaandi (2018): One night and three parallel yet interconnected stories. What will happen in this interlock of life, death and karma? Streaming on Hotstar.

• Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi’s Mohalla Assi (2018): A Sanskrit priest decides to take matters in his hand when the locals of holy town Banaras stars to lure foreign tourists with fake spiritual gurus. Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

• Vasan Bala’s Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota (2018): Leveraging his ability to withstand pain, a young man trains to follow in the footsteps of his martial-arts hero in this high-action, meta comedy. Streaming on Netflix.

• Anwar Rasheed’s Trance (2020, Malayalam): Viju, a motivational speaker, is hired to be the face of a religious scam for which he undergoes rigorous training. As his popularity grows, he sinks into the depths of darkness and delusion.

• Khalid Rahman’s Thallumaala (2022, Malayalam): Waseem is young, carefree and often drawn to fights. But when love blooms with a star vlogger, the impact of his fists could have disastrous effects. Streaming on Netflix.

• Vasan Bala’s Monica O My Darling (2022): A slick robotics expert joins a murderous plot after a passionate affair takes a sudden turn, but nothing — not even death — is what it seems to be. Streaming on Netflix.

• Qaushiq Mukherjee’s Tasher Desh (2012, Bengali): A royal prince arrives on an island of fascist rule and inspires a rebellion among its women in this hallucinogenic adaptation of a classic play. Streaming on Netflix.

• Pradeep Krishen’s In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (1989): Annie struggles to to clear his bachelor’s degree with one final hurdle-The Thesis. It’s his final attempt to clear it. Can he?

• Krishna Shah’s Shalimar (1978): Sir John Locksley, the greatest jewel thief, decides his most prized possession, the Shalimar Ruby, should be passed on to a worthy successor. The English version is here.

• Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Double Barrel (2015, Malayalam): Pancho and Vinci struggle to make money to buy precious stones from a don. When they attempt to make a crucial deal, complications arise and a large-scale gang war erupts.Streaming on SunNxt.

• Shashanka Ghosh’s Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part II (2003): A hapless copywriter torn between his crazy police officer fiancee and his new best friend, a hit man who inadvertently involves him in a violent gang war.

• Makarand Deshpande’s Sona Spa (2013): “The world is deprived of sleep. In Sona Spa you can buy sleep for yourself. Here Sleep Workers sleep for you. The place gives you sleep but takes away your dreams.”

~~~

Beth Watkins has considered going by only the letter W, but it does not seem sensible.