Set
aside
the
badla
that
beckons
at
the
box
office
this
week.
Qissa
is
a
killer.
All
our
lives
we
try
to
be
what
we
are
not.
Some
of
us
lie
about
our
sexual
orientation
to
ourselves
or
to
others.
In
one
way
or
another
every
life
is
layered
in
lies.
Film:
Qissa
Cast:
Irrfan
Khan,
Tisca
Chopra,
Tillotama
Shome,
Rasika
Duggal
Director:
Anup
Singh
Qissa
is
a
film
that
strips
through
the
layers
of
subterfuge
that
living
on
the
edge
entails.
The
partition
of
India
ripped
the
country
into
two.
In
the
film
Irrfan,
playing
the
Sardar
Umber
Singh
with
majestic
believability,
walks
across
the
border
with
his
family
of
a
beautiful
wife
(Tisca
Chopra)
and
three
daughters.
The
fourth
progeny
is
where
the
plot
thickens.
Obsessed
with
the
idea
of
a
male
heir,
Umber
invents
a
virtual
life
for
his
fourth
born.
She
is
no
longer
a
daughter.
She
is
Umber's
son
Kanwar
Singh
who
won't
play
with
dolls.
But
the
dolls
will
continue
to
play
with
her,
no
matter
how
hard
her
delusional
father
tries
to
fortify
the
growing
femininity
of
his
daughter
with
aggressive
clannish
lies.
Anup
Singh
unfolds
the
bewildering
and
bizarre
tale
with
an
inevitability
that
simply
dissolves
all
disbelief.
In
a
society,
culture
and
country
that
still
favours
the
male
child
as
the
true
inheritor
of
the
family
lineage,
the
message
that
Qissa
conveys
is
both
timely
and
timeless.
The
drama
created
in
the
screenplay
(co-written
by
the
director
Anup
Singh
and
Madhuja
Mukherjee)
is
so
primeval,it
threatens
to
collapse
under
the
weight
of
its
own
drama.
The
director
balances
out
the
incongruities
inherent
in
the
theme
with
a
great
deal
of
compelling
drama
and
primeval
passion.
You
can't
help
being
swept
away
by
the
deceit
drama
and
passion
of
Qissa.
Cinematographer
Sebastin
Edschmid
shoots
Punjab
as
a
hotbed
of
political
cultural
and
emotional
turmoil.
Not
surprisingly
the
last
quarter
of
the
narrative
slips
into
a
surreal
mode,
as
Umber,
now
dead,
returns
to
confront
the
son
he
never
had.
Finally
the
film
is
about
the
ghost
of
tormented
guilt-ridden
man
trying
to
come
to
terms
with
the
wrong
done
to
a
son' he
never
had
and
A
daughter-in-law
(Rasika
Duggal)
he
should've
never
conned.
Irrfan's
shared
screen-time
with
his
gender-challenged
daughter
are
structured
as
a
subverted
tribute
to
the
filial
bond
that
ties
all
mankind.
Like
destiny
,
Qissa
moves
in
unexpected
ways.
The
performances
specially
Irrfan's,
lift
the
high
drama
to
another
level
of
articulation
where
the
characters
appear
to
be
conversing
with
their
destiny
without
Edschmid's
camera
peering
into
their
souls.
More
than
70
percent
of
the
film
is
shot
in
the
night,
as
though
the
dark
recesses
in
the
characters'
souls
were
seeking
a
way
to
express
themselves
outwardly.
Emphatically
evocative
are
the
sequences
where
Tillotma
Shome
as
Kanwar
is
locked
away
in
her
father's
crumbling
ancestral
home
in
Pakistan
with
his'
bride
Neeli.
As
they
try
to
figure
out
a
way
from
his
gender
imbroglio,
a
glowering
state
of
doom
and
indignation
gathers
around
the
film.
You
know
as
well
as
the
characters
do
that
there
is
escape
from
the
patriarchal
arrogance
that
Irrfan's
character
has
unleashed
on
his
family.
In
some
endearing
way,
the
theme
of
patriarchal
tyranny
in
Qissa
reminded
me
of
Shoaib
Mansoor's
Pakistani
film
Bol.
And
though
Tillotama
Sharma's
gender
challenged
character
never
acquires
the
resilient
tragic
contours
of
Hillary
Swank
in
Boys
Don't
Cry,
she
brings
a
very
high
dose
of
credibility
and
poignancy
to
her
character,
specially
in
her
high
dramatic
sequence
where
her
character
stands
naked
in
front
of
her
father's
ghost
asking
him
her
true
identity.
Rasika
Duggal
as
Shome's
reluctant
bride
is
deeply
moving.
And
Tisca
Chopra
as
Irrfan's
devoted
wife
who
can't
give
her
husband
the
one
thing
that
makes
his
life
worthwhile,
reminds
us
again
of
her
staggering
versatility.
But
make
no
mistake.
Qissa
gets
the
largest
measure
of
its
strength
and
glory
from
Irrfan.
Like
the
ghost
that
follows
the
film's
gender-challenged
protagonist
Qissa
will
haunt
you
forever.
It
takes
the
patriarchal
obsession
with
the
male
heir
to
a
level
of
lucid
expression
where
geopolitical
dislocation
and
gender
ambivalence
are
locked
in
a
visceral
embrace.