 Um, I checked, I don't know if you saw my tweet. Your prostate? You tricked your prostate? Ha ha ha! Back to our stupid directions, and it's I'm Corbin. I'm Rick. And you call us on Instagram. You put it more juicy. You got this. You're juicy. Not the right juiciness you want. Frosty humor. And you call us on Instagram, and we just did that. Did we? Oh yeah. I've had too much cocaine today. Yep, that's what it is. Too much of it. Too much. And we're doing a movie right now. I don't know where we are right now. Of our fifth, technically? Technically. It's not technically. It is. It's our fifth and first. Fifth and first. Fifth and first. Fifth, because obviously the Apu trilogy, which is three films. He didn't make them as one film. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is three films. True. Although what's funny is we call them three films, but we think of them as the Apu trilogy so much that when somebody says to us their favorite film is Apu Panchali, we go, What's that? Yeah. And they're like, yeah, the first in the Apu trilogy. Oh yeah, I've heard of that. If you don't know what actually happened. Niraj, you know, just go check it out. It wasn't him, it was us. It was us. But yes, today we are reviewing our first non-Sachajit Rai Bengali film. And it comes from the very acclaimed critically and from you guys as well. Everybody said, go watch, go watch, go watch, go watch. And a trailer that we liked. Negar Kirtan. Negar Kirtan. Negar Kirtan. How do you actually pronounce that? I don't know, but the way you said it. Negar Kirtan. Yeah, it sounds like something, yeah, you got a problem with your Negar writer over here, but I just need to replace that in Negar Kirtan. And you're a good go. Have you actually pronounced that? I'm guessing Negar Kirtan. It is certainly closer to that because the A's are usually O sounds. Negar Kirtan. Directed and written by Koshikangali, who I believe is a renowned director in Bengal cinema, and acted by, let's just say, the main two at least. Yes, Ritrik Chakraborty and Riti Sen. And I believe they both come from like Bengali lineage of dancers. Yes, and dancers and especially Riti, yes. Is that a Bengali last name, Sen? That's a good question, I don't know. Because I only know from you guys that you've told me that they're all in Chakraborty or... Chakraborty, Mukherjee, yes, those are common, very popular Bengali last names. I also know nothing, so. And I don't know if Sen is a Bengali last name. Also, apparently he was in Kahani as well. I believe he had a small part in. I was gonna say it, what? In Lion. And Lion? Who did he play in Lion? I never saw Lion, but he was also 17 years old in this, so. Was he the adopted kid in Lion? I don't know, this was 2016 and so that was four years ago. He may have been the big brother, I don't know. Wow, Lion's a really, really good kid. Well, I remember because it was nominated for a bunch of Oscars. Yes. I never got to. My favorite work with Nicole Kibben probably. She's supporting in it and it's by far her best work and the subject matter's incredible, it's a true story. I'd love to receive it. Anyway, so this is, once again, our first non-touch-derived Bengali film. We're gonna explore more Bengali cinema just as we are going to explore every single cinema. If you'd like to see our reviews for other Bengali cinema or other regions, I have a playlist of every single one of them. This is the Bengali playlist, so you can go check those out. 100% spoiler review. If you haven't watched it, go check it out. It's pretty short, 150 minutes basically. So, I mean, in comparison to other films. Is it really 150? I think it's around 150, I think. Yeah. Anyways, so. Didn't feel like 150. Thoughts. Did you watch it with Indrani? No, she was intending to watch it with me, but she wasn't feeling well enough to do so. She said, you go right ahead and you watch it. She was going to. Cool, cool. You got a paragraph? I have a semi-paragraph, yes. That's both written and then it will be off the top of my head. He has a semi. Yes. One of the most tender, thoughtful, empathetic, and loving depictions of its kind, in company with the likes of the Danish girl and call me by your name, with an absolutely captivating and incredible performance by Riedi Sen. Yeah. I agree. I agree as well. There were some issues I had. It's actually mostly the issues I had. We're probably gonna be with the way it was structured, but we could talk about that more. Sure. We're gonna get issues for sure. Yeah. But yeah, I thought she was definitely the high, like he, sorry, because the actor, I believe. That's how good he was. Yeah, that's how good he was. That's how good he was right there. Because like, that's fantastic. I had to look up to see, I was like, is this a trans actor? Is this a woman? Who is this? And then it was just a man actor, which he did a phenomenal job. Yeah, I loved that when I first started to explore, because I wanted to know, there wasn't anything telling me anything. So other than the fact that they were referring to him as a he in his descriptions. Yeah. They let you figure it out. They let you figure it out. And I loved it first. It just, it goes straight to the brilliance of his performance that you couldn't really tell. Yeah. You cannot tell. No, and I meant to look up before the review like him in interviews, because I want to see how he actually is as a person, what his voice is like, I'd imagine it was quite a huge transformation. Now I think our friend Rohan, who has been gone, he said he's the youngest actor to ever win a national award. He deserved it. Yeah, I think he was 17 when he got the national award for this. Was he 17 in this? Yes, he was 17 at the time. She was. Insane, right? Yeah. So like, yeah, I did not realize that. I thought this was a 20 something playing at 18. Point blank, worth it just to watch for the performance that this man gives. I would tell anybody, equate it to Eddie Redman and the Danish girl. That's exactly where I would go. Yeah. And even more so because they're very similar in terms of they're both, they both have a similar, so if you haven't seen the Danish girl, you really should. It's a true story about the same exact situation where you have a male who wants to be female and is struggling with the fact that they have always felt connected to a female and feel like they're a woman in a man's body and need to have the transition. But there was, for me, as much as Eddie did, I'm not taking a single thing away from Eddie Redman and got so very different. Very, very different story. Technicals, because they also have to go into Eddie's a little more too. Exactly. And I got the opportunity, I don't know, did you go to any of the sex screenings for Danish girl with him, with Q and A's? No, I wasn't sagged at the time. Oh, well, I went to one. I don't remember quite what it brought with me, but anyway, Eddie Redman did a Q and A afterwards and he was what you would expect. Extremely articulate, intelligent, empathetic, talked about what it was like to portray the character. This, for me, I was immediately caring about this character. Oh, yeah. I immediately connected to this character. I made an audible gasp and covered my mouth. Like, I went, Oh! When? When the wig came off. Oh, yeah, same. Yeah. Because that whole scene was... Here she is having a cathartic breakdown and being comforted and I didn't see it coming. I did, as she was doing the hair, I didn't see the wig coming off. I thought that something like they were gonna reveal something, but I didn't... That would happen. I didn't foresee that she was gonna have a wig taken off and had it done without her basically knowledge of it. And I also felt, you know, as for me, the stealer of the show is Riddie Sin. I thought that Chaka Bordy, opposite Riddie, did a really Yeah, did a really solid job. I think it was so as well. I had a weird relationship with this character, which was, I think maybe it wasn't intended. I don't know. I thought he was an asshole at some point. Like, when like, it's just, when he didn't want to see him, when he's like, don't ever come into my, like, not being pre-T or whatever. Yeah. What was the name? Puti, sorry. Don't ever come into like, don't ever, I don't want to see you. I don't want to see the house. Like, you're a dick. Well, yeah, I gave him a little bit more in that because I could tell that he was, he was still not coming to terms with who he was. And I think there were parts of him that were fighting that aspect and didn't want to be wrote. I think at first for him, it was a fantasy. Yeah. And then he realized, I'm in love with you. And then- But he never saw himself as gay. And so he was like, I'm, I need you to be a woman. I don't think he fully embraced it until the final frame. Yeah, and the final frame was very interesting because it wasn't what I was expecting from the final frame. Not at all. And you could, it's open to interpretation of what that meant. Yes. I thought he was going to kill him. At the end. You thought he was going to kill him in the room? You would. I didn't know if it was the ones that like beat her up or whatever. Oh no, it was the cult cutter group. I figured that out after, but at first I thought it was that group. And I was like, oh, he's going to shoot him on the face. It's an anti style. You killed my woman. Obviously not what happened. That would have been great. Yeah. So that's just where my mind goes. I'll watch Mazlapur. Been watching too much of that. Yeah, no kidding. Patreon. Anyways, so yeah, that was so interesting because he came out in those woman's garb. And I'm still wondering what it actually meant fully. I think it was just his support for her. No. Was it that this was how he's felt? Cause I never thought that he was struggling with the feeling like a woman. I don't think he was ever feeling like, feeling a struggle as a woman. I think for him, and this is a wonderful thing about the director giving you an opportunity to choose what you want it to be at the end there. I think what the message was, as we look at this character was he, it was a combination of I'm going to accept the fact that I am who I am. And I'm finally once and for all going to kill all of the prejudices and stereotypes I had about the Unix, the group, whatever, whatever he had been pre-programmed by his family that he believed once. Yeah. That it was a, what could I liken it to? It's reminding me of something where, why don't I, I'm seeing a bird. No, there's a film where somebody completely and fully embraces themselves. And I don't know if it's Bird Cage or, but anyway, that's what I took it to mean. And I thought it was, I thought it was especially poignant that they held as long as they did. And a tear came down, which that just happened in the moment. Yeah. I also, I knew, I could feel, I knew she was going to die. Yeah, I felt the tear. I knew that was coming. Yeah. I felt it was a really honest, I appreciated the reality that they did. Did you notice that he wet himself when he died? And they typically don't show that in, but that's the truth. When people die, all bodily functions go, fart poop, fart poop, pee, everything releases. So usually when someone hangs themselves, they've cracked the pants and pee into pants because the whole system just goes off and added to the sadness of it. And then we can get into, which we should, the subject matter, the actual issue it's talking about. But before we do, you had said something about pacing or timing or... No, so like the only issue I had, and it wasn't, it's not a huge issue. Cause I, it's actually double edged short cause the director, I thought did a brilliant job with making sure the audience, he told the audience what he needs to know, but it didn't dumb it down ever. And it never spoon fed you. You had to figure out that, okay, she wants to be transgender or she feels like, this is a man, this is a woman, but they never actually specifically said it. They told you. Exactly. And as well as the ships back to the beginning of the relationship to now, there was never any hint that... Yeah, there was a lot of the back and forth. And it was actually really well done because a lot of times the back and forth, it was like they were on a bus and then the scene that was there was all, had to do with a bus in some sort of way. That's a lot of that. The only thing I felt like sometimes, since it was a lot of it, it took away from some of the impact of what was happening in the now or the past cause they did it so much. I just wanted to, I wanted to stay in that a little more. Gotcha. That's the only thing I could critique it with though. And it's not like a big, like I said, it's not a big thing. It's just, it's my personal preference, I would have liked to stay on certain moments probably longer, just so I could feel it more. Interesting. Yeah, that didn't, it didn't throw me. Yeah. I actually appreciated that the director. That's double the choice. I like that, I didn't like it. There were times I got a little confused. I was like, okay, where are we right now? At the beginning, but I like that. I would much rather have a director do that than, but again, really sad man. I hope I'm pronouncing your name right. An absolutely exemplary, it was so obvious, the theater training. Mm-hmm. His dad's, I believe, a thespian as well. Yeah, one of my favorite moments in the film that you just can't teach an actor to do. No matter how many times you tell an actor, this is what I want. Unless they got it, they ain't got it. And it was the moment when, I mean, he had many moments like this, but the one that I found to be so brilliant was just him watching her upper boardings. Yeah, undressed. Yeah, I thought it was a brilliant moment. Wasn't that just an incredible moment? Yeah, because he didn't do anything. He didn't do anything, but what I saw, I saw this person looking, and all of the longing of, that's all I've ever wanted to be. Because a lot of times actors and experience will try to do something because they're like, nothing's happening. They'll indicate left and right. Yeah, the thing will be, the director might even say to them, this is what I'm hoping for. I want to see you watching her undress and everything you've wanted to be, you see in front of you. Very well may have said that. And inexperienced, untrained actors are gonna go, okay, so that means I need to show it. Act, no. And every moment, I didn't think he had a false moment. No, he was brilliant. And the most, the hardest thing for an actor in this role to do, and it would have been for me the highest compliment. Like if I had to play this character, which is, this is a kind of character I would freaking love to play. The highest compliment I could get would be one of two things. The first one would be that the audience believed I was more woman than male. And I believed that with this character. I could have easily believed that was a woman. It was absolutely more feminine than masculine at his core. And then the larger one would be if I had the transgender community come up and go, you were beautiful and brilliant. That would be the highest compliment. I would like to know what the transgender community thought about it. Especially the one in India and in Calcutta. Which is, it's different than transgender community here because here, there'd be a whole thing that a non-transgender was playing a transgender and that's a whole debate in and of itself. But I would like to know what real transgender people are in that community thought about her performance. Yeah, her performance, her performance, whatever. And we've heard this term before. It seems to be pretty popular to call transgender males Unix. Maybe because they... I think that's why. Yeah, probably. I guess because they consider it that that's what, it's just so archaic to me. Well, the world has been archaic to trans people for ever. Yep. As long as they've known about them. Yeah. Pretty sure. He had a line that for me typifies not just the film, but I felt was quite possibly of all the films that I mentioned. You can talk about the films I mentioned, Danish Girl, Call Me By Your Name, Broke Back Mountain, obviously. Yeah. There's a line he says when he's talking to him. And I got emotional and I said the line out loud as I wrote it down. Pudi. Pudi, gotcha. Talking to what's Shocker Boy's character? Madhu. Madhu. He's talking to him and he says to him, what's my fault here? Yeah. That for me... Did you cry? At that moment, actually. Gotcha. That moment got me emotional as did him crying in the wig coming off. I didn't cry at the end because I knew what was coming. Yeah. But when he said, what's my fault here? Yep. That for me was a unifying line from every single person. I just recently had a stupid baby on Instagram who's gonna remain anonymous. Message me. And the honor of getting these kinds of messages from stupid babies. And saying, I'm gay. I wanna tell my family but I'm so scared. Not just because of the judgment but I know I'm gonna hurt them. Yep. And I had this conversation as it was digitally. And I think for me, that's always been the biggest thing of, and I remember talking to Ashley, Alexis, and Micah growing up. Whenever we would see someone depicted in a film or a story who was transgender or homosexual, I would say to my kids, screening for their empathy, what are they supposed to do? Yeah. What's their fault? Are they supposed to lie to themselves and say, when I look at someone who's of the same sex, I'm not feeling this? I should just lie about that and pretend I'm not having these feelings? You think that they say, I feel like a woman in a man's body. You think they're just making that up for attention? And can you imagine what that must be like? Yeah. To be someone who feels that way all the time and have society. I remember seeing a man walking at the Shermere's Galleria. Not an attractive woman, dressed as a woman. I think was transitioning because in the United States, when you do that, you have to live as a woman for a long time before they actually do the operation. And I remember walking him walk by me and thinking to myself, does anybody around here understand how courageous that is? Yeah, that's why, whenever, what's his name, that Jenner did it, that's why it was such a big deal. Yeah. He's very different than normal transgender people because he's a millionaire. So that helps the situation. So he's not really the usual case, but that's why it was such a big deal because even if you're, he's finally coming out is who he's always thought he was. Right. Or she, sorry, who she always thought she was. And if anybody's struggling with this or with being gay or lesbian or whatever, I hope your families are understanding. That's the hardest thing. If you are a parent of somebody coming out, suck it up, it's not about you. Love them. Yeah, that's neat. It's not your job to tell your child how to live their life. Correct. Ever. Correct. You just reminded me of something else I wrote on here. It's so dumb. I have a brother who is gay. He came out, I think in college, we knew way before. Yeah, everybody knew way before. We knew way before college. And I also have a cousin who came out much later and her parents didn't take it as well. But both grew up in very Christian households and so there was, my parents, I feel handled it pretty darn well even though I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff I don't know about as well. But my cousin, who's a woman, her parents are much more conservative. And so they have a much harder time and they're, especially the dad and her had a struggle for a long time, a couple of years before they finally wrecking thought. Your opinions on the matter are not as important as your relationship with your child. Correct. Get over it. You're gonna have other things in your life where you disagree with your child about something that for you is a critically important thing. For me, the singular most important thing you can have is the relationship that's built on love. And loving. It's that life. Yeah. And you can say, you can feel like I don't agree with where you are in that place but that doesn't mean that you don't love and accept them. I've never understood that. Makes no sense to me. I've never understood it. Yeah, there's posts about, I think I posted it on Twitter, when people are like, what would you do if your kid came home this way? It's like a man dressed up as a woman. Right. And I was like, I would love them. What's your point? The dad, when he wins the award and mama so proud of him and all the dad can see is why are you dressing him up in a dress? Why do you let him play with the girl's toys? Why do you let him play with the, yeah. It's definitely a very powerful film. Yes. It's obviously a very important film, especially since India, even though we know gay marriage was, I mean, being gay was legalized, marriage is still not legalized in India. And even here where it's legalized, it's not, they don't have, like there's still oppression of people that are in that community. And there's obviously attacks on people in the community. The Pulse nightclub happened here. My brother was there that night. Like he, I think he's had 10 friends who died at the Pulse. The persecution does not stop, sadly, even when gay marriage is legal, but it's somewhere, it's the next step. Yes. So this film is incredibly important. I want to send all the regards and the praise to the writer and the director of this film for this brave week, because we haven't even seen this story very much in American cinema. No. It's happened a few times. You've had a few, like once in Indian cinema that's it's very different because the culture is very different. Yes. As you saw. And what I loved about this film was the level of everything about it, the way it was shot, the way it was scripted, the way it was acted and the way the score was done. Cause the music I thought was absolutely beautiful. It was very subtle. Very subtle, very delicate, very nuanced, very tender and very vulnerable. I felt, and one of my favorite things about Reedy Sen is that that character portrayal for my experience, for the folks that I've known and had in my life who are gay or transgender or transitioning, that's very much the kind of person that they are. Very loving, very accepting, very expressive and very hurt when they don't receive the same level of compassion back. Incomprehensible because they're such caring, compassionate, empathetic beings that when they don't get it back, it's deeply, deeply hurting. And even that last aspect, the level of lives that are taken by people themselves, because of the hatred that's directed at that, because of the bullying, because it's really high. And it's awful. I would love, this should be a family sit down. You should be a much watched for, I watched Lee Lent, he loved it. Yeah. He watched Gangs too. He loved that one. Yeah, I bet he did. Oh, he loved it. He especially loved the one that chopped off the head. Yeah. Anyways, fantastic movie. Great, I hope you're not still here if you haven't seen it, but if you are, just stop now, even though you've been spoiled the entire time. So I hope you're still not here. A lot of people do go away and come back. Yeah. That's fantastic. Because we had, I think Rohan, he got this film for us. Yeah, this is not an easy find. This is not an easy find, but hopefully, and because I think the last one, that was not an easy find, what was it? Hela Roam. Hela Roam, yeah. Because that was available in India, because you could get that on MX Player. I'm hoping it's available widely for India, because it's regional. And I know most people don't watch all regionals. Yeah. And we're hoping that changes. Yeah. And everybody watches all good cinema, regardless of where it's from. Imagine. Language doesn't matter, but you know, I digress. Phenomenal film. Yeah. So let's, down below, let us know what's the next Bengali film we should watch, whether it's Satchit Rai or something else. Anything that Radio Senna's done, let me know. What's he doing right now? Let's check him. And probably has done, if he's in doing anything on stage, I know we can't get there yet, but he's, I would watch this film again just because I want to watch his face on camera. He's such a beautiful actor. Yes. Radio Senna, if you are watching, you're a beautiful actor. You're a phenomenal job. We can't wait to watch what you do next. So let us know down below what we should watch and review next.