“Perhaps, you are scared of conventional happiness”

This year, 15th Kolkata International Film Festival, had in its kitty a number of French films of which I got to watch two: The Day God Walked Away and The Frontier of Dawn. The first one is an extremely realistic portrayal of the Rwanda genocide, sometimes stomach-wrenchingly grotesque, and the second is a love story of a photographer. None of these are great films so to speak; yet, the second film did manage to impress me. This photographer (he would constantly remind you of the handsome photographer of Aparna Sen’s Parama who compelled the demure Rakhee to rediscover herself beyond the confines of her home) falls in love with a married actress who dies shortly after. Though it was a steamy affair, the guy, devastatingly debonair, falls in love again. However, none of the two affairs seems to move beyond carnal desires, and the bindaas photographer does not really seem involved in any of the affairs emotionally. But the second affair transpires into responsibilities, as the girl suddenly announces that she is pregnant and wishes to keep the baby. Though reluctant, the photographer relents and they are about to tie the knot. Once the wedding day is fixed, whenever the would-be-groom stands in front of the mirror, he sees his former girl friend, the dead actress, appearing in his place and inviting him to be with her. Anxious and awfully perplexed, the photographer seeks his friends’ counsel: while one blandly puts it as his subconscious surfacing in form of the dead actress, the other points towards something more profound, and perhaps a bit spine-chilling. Terribly sceptical of marriage and the social rituals associated with it, this loveable friend tells him “Perhaps you are scared of conventional happiness”. The dead actress rises from the dead to incarnate his fears. Careless, mobile, completely in love with life, and revelling in carnality, this photographer is wild, and cannot be bound within domestic circles. Although he has agreed to marry and raise his baby, for that is exactly what society demands of him, he is scared of being harnessed. Usually (and more often because you are expected to, for that is what it has been), people are expected to rejoice at the prospects of having a baby and a family. But there’s no harm in thinking otherwise. It’s like Camus’ Outsider who does not feel like weeping at his mother’s funeral.

This photographer listens intently to his friend’s explanation and the night before the wedding commits suicide. He was indeed scared of conventional happiness. Many of us are! And I sympathised with him, completely. Why can’t we have our very own ways of being happy?