Loev : Not a gay film, it s an unforgettable love story

Film: Loev; Writer-Director: Sudhanshu Saria; Cast: Shiv Pandit Dhruv Ganesh and Siddharth Menon; Rating: ****


Quite often in this luscious and luminous love story as I journeyed with Jai and Sahil through rocky terrain on a pilgrimage of passion and heartbreak that reminded me of Ang Lee s Brokeback Mountain I forgot the gender of the two protagonists.

This I soon gathered is why this striking study of repression guilt passion and self-articulation has been rejected at many LGBTQ film festivals as being not gay enough.

Thank God at least one filmmaker has shown himself to be courageous enough to stand up and say Hey guys it doesn t matter if the lovers are both of the same sex. What matters is the love not the sex.

Loev is a tender yet brutal slender yet sturdy road film strewn with clues to the heartbreak that eventually awaits those who dare not love beyond the prescribed boundaries. Writer-director Sudhanshu Saria doesn t waste time in constructing back stories or deconstructing the complex relationship of his two characters to make their passion more accessible to us.

The narrative unfolds with a disquieting naturalness. The flow of emotions is never outsourced. It is insinuated organically into every scene so that we are never required to stare with stupefaction or God forbid embarrassment at the same-gender relationship.

Nature in all its rocky-mountain glory stands a silent witness. We may be awed by the visual majesty. Nature is never in awe of itself. The influence of Ang Lee s Brokeback Mountain specially in the way the rocky terrain is used to define the theme of forbidden love is palpable.

Saria uses the rugged outdoors of Mahabaleshwar to spotlight the repressed emotions. The aerial shot show deep ravines and chasms in the rocky mountains. Significantly Sahil jumps effortlessly over them. Jai stops.

The intimate moments never creep up on the two men apologetically. When they kiss... Boy they really kiss. Passion is never unwelcome in the film even in one sequence it turns unbearably ugly. In one sequence Shiv Pandit is required to hold his co-star -- the late and mourned Dhruv Ganesh -- in what is a theme-defying moment of tenderness and lust. It is a moment of epic sadness and comfort.

There is a disarming lack of artifice and ostentation in the way the two protagonists characters are written and played. And thank God Saria found the perfect actors to play the two parts. Shiv Pandit one of our most underused young actors whom ‘Bollywood hasn t been able to slot (quite like this film which mercifully doesn t look towards Bollywood for approval) as the Manhattan s desi hotshot on a weekend in Mahabaleshwar with a charming young uncloseted gay man is unassuming and credible.

Dhruv Ganesh s eloquent eyes and effortless body-language are unforgettable.

The two protagonists evidently have a shared history which comes undone in unexpected ways as the film unfolds.

Charming disturbing and sometimes haunting Loev is that same-sex love story that finally defines homosexuality on screen without resorting to titillating tropes and semi-apologetic back stories. Nor is there any self-congratulations in the way Pandit and Ganesh play the two main parts. They are friends and possibly lovers full-blooded and restless impelled by a sense of reckless yet reined-in self-exploration.

The two actors look exceptionally comfortable together projecting their characters uncomfortable predicament with persuasion and integrity. There is a third actor Siddharth Menon who plays Alex a bit of an attention-seeker in a film where tranqullity is preferred over ostentation.

There is a provocative ambivalence to their relationship. And a key rape sequence (echoing Heath Ledger s assault of the half-heartedly protesting Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain) raises some very disturbing questions on consent passion and guilt.

Shiv Pandit and Dhruv Ganesh have surrendered to their roles with a lack of bravado that this film constantly demands from its actors. The fact that Dhruv passed away soon after shooting the film gives to the on screen theme of incomplete passion an added layer of longing.

We cineastes are always searching probing and looking for relevances that perhaps do not always exist in the cinematic experience. Here is a film that tells us it s okay to look beyond the obvious because that s what the characters are doing all the time.

This film not only redefines love and passion in the context of the Indian reality it is a new beginning for cinema on unconstitutional love in India.

--IANS
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