Qissa review: This Irrfan Khan-starrer is the story of a young girl who tried to be a good man

Most children play dress-up at some point. They pretend to be something they’re not, delighting in the illusion that allows them to let mundane reality fade temporarily.

Sometimes, however, dress-up isn’t quite so innocent. Qissa: The Tale of a Lonely Ghost is the story of how far-reaching the consequences can be of playacting.

When we first meet Umber Singh (Irrfan Khan), he’s fighting a losing battle. Partition has forced upon him and his village terrible violence because this Sikh village is in Pakistan. The village is empty, but for corpses, bonfires and bloodied fighters like Umber.

Hiding a distance away from the village are the women and children. Here, in these terrible times, Umber’s wife Mehar (Tisca Chopra) gives birth to a baby girl. There’s no jubilation, not only because the villagers are about to become refugees in India but because Umber was desperately hoping for a son.

Years later, when Umber has established himself in the lumber business in the Indian side of Punjab, Mehar becomes pregnant again. This time, Umber is in the room with her as she delivers their child and he is triumphant. It’s a boy, he says, overjoyed. Mehar wants to look at the baby, but Umber doesn’t let her. Rest, he tells her and a shadow of a terrible despair is cast upon Mehar’s face. Don’t do this, she begs Umber but he doesn’t listen. He’s too busy celebrating his son’s birth. The reason for Mehar’s dismay is explained years later when one night Umber’s son Kanwar wakes Umber up, points to the crotch of his pyjamas and says, “Papa, khoon.” (“Papa, blood.”) Determined to not be outfoxed by biology, Umber has raised his daughter as a son.

As a child, Kanwar is taught to bind his chest. He studies wrestling. As a young adolescent (played by Tillotama Shome), he starts driving a truck. Practically speaking, Kanwar is a son of the soil. Except for the fact that he is, physically speaking, a girl.

It’s when Neeli (Rasika Dugal), a gypsy girl, enters the story and Umber decides to marry Kanwar to her that things start getting seriously complicated and Qissa loses its footing.

Until this point, Qissa holds your attention with both its technical sophistication and its storytelling. The cinematography is gorgeous, the background score is rich and the acting is superb. All this remains largely constant for the duration of the film, but the story flounders and starts pushing the boundaries of credibility.

Abruptly, the film abandons the realism that had grounded it and turns into a surreal story that involves elements like a ghost and a seemingly lunatic woman roaming around burnt-down haveli. Perhaps it’s meant to be magic realism but the shift in tone is jarring and most importantly, it distracts us from Kanwar’s identity crisis and the relationship with Neeli. Also, even the realistic becomes improbable as the film builds up to a decidedly forced climax. Some of Qissa’s most powerful moments are between Shome and Dugal. Dugal sparkles as the feisty Neeli who is confused between her fondness for Kanwar and rage at being conned into marrying a woman.

Shome is credible but not entirely convincing as Kanwar in his teenaged boy avatar. However, later in the film, when she plays a Kanwar trying to figure out whether masculinity or femininity comes naturally to her, Shome is superb.

Unfortunately for both these actors, the script seems unsure about their relationship. At one point, they giggle about having fallen in love with a woman. But the film seems to shy away from walking the Boys Don’t Cry path.

A few scenes later, Neeli says they are like sisters. Kanwar can kill for Neeli, but there doesn’t seem to be any sexual attraction. Considering the circumstances, that the characters would be confused makes complete sense, but the problem with Qissa is that the intent of the story seems confused. As a result, neither the characters nor the audience really knows whether Neeli and Kanwar are in love or friends or forced together by circumstance.

Director Anup Singh’s last film was The Name of a River, a stylised tribute to the films and life of filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak. It was lyrical, neatly tangled in its own internal logic and not particularly easy to access if you weren’t a fan of Ghatak’s work.

Qissa is far less dense and a simpler narrative. Despite losing its way in parts, it’s a thought-provoking film that looks beautiful and has some superb acting performances by Dugal, Shome, Khan and Chopra. That isn’t enough to make Qissa satisfying, but it does leave you haunted by the questions that riddle Kanwar, Neeli, Mehar and Umber’s stories.