Review: Q's raunchy "Brahman Naman" is his most accessible film to date.

The first thing that we notice and acknowledge in provocateur Qaushiq Mukherjee’s – who goes by Q – new film, his most accessible to date, is that it sounds different. And no, I do not mean the liberal use of expletives or the fact that it is in the English language. It’s the jargon. For some reason, I was instantly reminded of Jason Reitman’s Juno. The fast-talking, Shakespeare-quoting protagonists here, cocky and geeky quizzers who designate themselves as gods, use words like “obsequiousness,” “ocular fill” and go for “mayhaps” instead of “perhaps.” (An imaginative mind would easily see them hanging out with Arundhati Roy's shaggy and pot-smoking architecture students from In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones.) I haven’t met a fellow Indian – quizzer, nerd or otherwise – who talk like Brahman Naman’s protagonists, who uses the words that they do. And I do not claim to know many of them, having never been a part of the country’s quizzing scene. It's a fascinating world we enter, and our first glimpses of it – the clothes they wear, the music they listen to, the cars and scooters they ride, and the houses they live in – are beautifully captured.

We can acknowledge one other thing early into this movie, too. The outrageous and bawdy Brahman Naman is several steps ahead of the other so-called sex comedies India has to offer. It has a lot of interesting things to say and, er, show. It has wit and style. It has life. It is less flashy in comparison to Q’s previous works. It does not feature actors doing a great disservice to their profession. And it does not go for sexist and homophobic jokes – tasteless, in other words – to elicit laughter. And yet, it remains unsatisfying. Not because it shies away from showing or saying something, but because the filmmaking feels a tad gimmicky. 

Q's works have always been a bit showy, serving more to provoke outrage than engage, and Brahman Naman is an out-and-out Q product. There's a snappiness to the narrative, explicit nudity, emotional detachment for the most part, and an eagerness to shock. But this is an oddly likable tale of sexual awakening. Or, er, almost-sexual awakening, so to speak. This isn't the first time the filmmaker has tackled this subject. In Gandu, his controversial debut that was banned, he had explored it fearlessly and not in a manner that will stay with a viewer for how they responded to the film. Although a grungy but great film that made a very real effort to challenge censorship, it will be sadly remembered more for its explicit sexual content than for anything else. Brahman Naman, thankfully, will be remembered, if it does, for everything else except its attempts at subversion. 

And then there's a different kind of beauty to be found here. We do not have protagonists – four males – we like, for they ill-treat on a regular basis the one character we actually do like. They treat women like objects one should lust after only when they tick the correct boxes when it comes to caste and fashion. But even when there's nothing likable about them, there is nothing unlikable about them. They are not innately bad people. They are reflections of misogynistic men we have known at some point. Writer Naman Ramachandran's excellent and incisive writing forces us to understand them and their actions without ever disliking them, even when they foul up. While their antics are only moderately amusing – I am obligated to not spill the beans here, unfortunately, but I will say that the aftermath of a party sees an especially nasty piece of revenge – it is their confusion and lack of courage to approach women and recognize the right people for them that makes them charming in a weird way. At a time when students in Indian cinema are categorized very broadly into "geek," "cool," "disinterested" and "rebel," these characters come across as real. And it is such a relief.

 As the story progressed, I found myself becoming increasingly restless. The weariness came as it ventured into a territory I am not particularly fond of: self-indulgence. It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment where it set in, but I came to discover that it stopped being the film I was enjoying until that point. I had stopped caring for its characters. My emotional investment into the story wasn't there anymore. I was looking for a scene or maybe a detail that would make me invest in its characters again. But I did not find it. The characters don't stop being themselves, and the lack of variation in their attitude toward life or people in general made for a somewhat monotonous conclusion. They go on with their lives a little wiser, as they should, but the impact of it isn't strong enough. Sure, there are a couple of fabulous sequences and the film manages to stay unpredictable till the end. But in retrospect, I feel a small emotional punch would have made me enjoy it more. (There is this slight detail in the end, a nod, that did make me smile a silly smile, but it was followed by an inexplicable twist. That is… exactly why it didn’t live up to my expectations.)

Brahman Naman is that kind of film that doesn't entirely work, but it makes one excited to see what the people involved come up with next. It does manage to beat most Indian films released this year on the basis of its spunk – yes, pun intended – and its ability to capture an era, something which many domestic films fail at. And let's not forget that lovely, lovely soundtrack. Greatest 80’s hits, handpicked. Wow. Wow.

(Not For Reproduction)