The fact that Lasse Hallstrom (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape) was out and Tom Hooper (Les Miserables) was in as co-producer and director, I was apprehensive of production values drowning the narrative. But The Danish Girl is a very non-daring film. Hooper’s crystal-clear storytelling makes Einar Wegener’s gender struggle easy to grasp as if he were a lovable princess played by Cate Blanchett. That does not make The Danish Girl watchable, but revolutionary.

Watching the film was like a deja vu. I was constantly reminded of Rituparno Ghosh’s Chitrangada. I never really was a huge fan of Rituparno’s films. But when I saw him act in Arekti Premer Golpo I was moved and wrote a review in t2. While Ranjana... was being shot, my best pal from Darjeeling had come to the city for a major heart surgery and needed a place to recuperate for six months. I desperately asked Rituparno to let out his empty apartment which he did without batting an eye or accepting money. I told him that I would do anything for him. He came back to me with the role of the non-existent psychiatrist Shubho in Chitrangada. I agreed.

The woman within Ritu

So began the first Indian film on gender reassignment surgery and “Women within Man”, entitled Chitrangada. Rituparno, who had taken me for a homophobic because of my dislike for his movies, realised that I had always been a fighter for the gay and transsexual cause. I, who had taken Ritu to be simplistic, sentimental, realised he was actually far too sensitive and suffering deeply within. We spent evenings reworking the script and discussing the issue of sex change and what it takes, the repercussions, changing certain dialogues...

Ritu used to buy me whisky and I used to carry his coffee till I realised he was taking too many pills, which I snatched from his hands one day and refused to give back despite his pleas. We incorporated that in a scene. But since that day I knew for sure that Ritu will never be able to think the way I think because deep within him there was a woman who was actually all the women characters in his movies.

Tale of two heroines

Gerda, played brilliantly by Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl, asks her husband Einar Wegener to pose as a dancer for her painting. Einar laughingly pulls up a pair of tights and wears dainty ballerina slippers. The experience does not awaken new feelings but just a stir that proves that Lili was always there in Einar. Gerda jokingly dresses up her husband as Lili and takes him to a party where Einar discovers his joy of being a woman. A confused Gerda watches Einar kiss Henrik, played superbly by Ben Whishaw. They realise that Lili is here to stay.

Lucinda Coxton’s perceptive screenplay withholds the lightning you might expect at this point. But the magic is held back till the second half where both meet the doctor. Einar says, “I believe I’m a woman”. An extremely quiet Gerda confirms, “I believe it too”. The beauty of The Danish Girl is that it’s actually about two heroines. Only one started as a Danish boy.

The film’s secret weapon is Alicia Vikander. The actress of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is mind-blowing and deserves the Oscar nomination she’s got. A role slated for Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman, Marion Cotillard, becomes one of the most complex portrayals by Alicia and I end up crying for Gerda each time she smiles or is funny.
The brilliance of the film is that it never tries to flaunt anything; its quiet dignity. Beautifully shot by Danny Cohen, it captures the greyness of Copenhagen and the subtlety of Paris. The depth of the subject matter is heightened by foxed mirrors, smudged windows, the rain....

Avik Mukhopadhyay’s austere cinematography, intermingled with theatrical lighting, is an asset of our Chitrangada. He attains a certain magical quality by being simple. Just with his frames. In all the scenes between me as Shubho and Ritu as Rudra, undergoing sexual reassignment, in the clinic, he let us simply sit and talk. That’s it. We too had to do as minimal as possible. Just be and not act.

This is not a comparison between The Danish Girl and Chitrangada. It’s neither a review. It’s my own personal understanding of what great cinema can be and what we try to practice in our limited condition. See, The Danish Girl was made with 15 million and has already grossed 21 million. Chitrangada was made with less than a crore and flopped at the box office. Who cares? We tried. And we respect great cinema.

The scene where Einar discovers his body in front of the mirror intercut with his wife Gerda painting her husband nude as a woman. The scene where Gerda leaves her successful art exhibition to sit in the rain. The scene where she returns home to beg Einar, now fully taken over by Lili, to become her husband for once and he cannot. The scene where Einar tries to wear male clothes and makes an effort to be a man and fails. The scene where Einar cries helplessly alone in the clinic before his surgery... all are so austere, subtle yet overwhelmingly painful. What could have been totally mushy was spared by the scissors of Melanie Ann Oliver and we are left to our own conclusions of what it means to be born as man with a woman inside or vice versa.

Chitrangada to me was actually Ritu’s last film since he did not complete his last. It is not a great film from Calcutta, neither was it commercially successful. But Arghyakamal Mitra’s cutting makes it one of the most non-sentimental films on a very sensational issue in India. Unfortunately a handful found it brave and most, dispensable.... 

The Danish Girl will perhaps stumble with its four nominations at the Oscars against the giant, big-budget Inarritu/DiCaprio combo (The Revenant) which will never ever be a 21 Grams. That is what is our connection. To do it quietly and hope that there are some who will care. During the making I had kept telling Ritu that why is everybody so kind to Rudra in this basically homophobic world? Give it some bitterness. Hatred. Balance it. Rituparno Ghosh kept retorting that the world has actually been very kind to him or else he would not have been successful.

In The Danish Girl, loosely the biopic of Lili Elbe, Einar’s wife helps in his sexual transformation surgery. Which speaks of immense kindness and humanity. In The Danish Girl, a dying Einar/Lili tells his wife: “What have I done to get so much kindness?” In Chitrangada, after the first surgery, Rudra’s homophobic father kisses his son because he reminds him of his wife.

Redmayne vs Rituparno

The major difference, however, is Eddie Redmayne. The actor who bagged the Oscar last year for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything is perhaps the best in this generation along with Jared Leto. He is dazzlingly in control in every scene. His frontal nudity before the mirror, mimicking of women’s gestures... all are just too effortlessly stunning and honest; you feel he can replace Sean Penn.

Here is where Chitrangada sucks. Rituparno did not have to act to be believable. He was the character. As an actor I cannot accept this at all. Rudra remained Ritu throughout. I salute Ritu for making one of the most revolutionary films in India but cannot accept his performance since it lacked the distantiation required. But to Eddie Redmayne, I will bow, salute, pay all my respects I have for the craft of acting.

But again this piece is not about comparisons anyway. 

Einar becomes Lili and dies after his second surgery, stunningly performed by Redmayne. Rudra refuses to do the second surgery because I, as Shubho, tell him; “You are what you are and no change is complete”. Yet Rituparno dies in real life because he perhaps cannot take the duality inside anymore....