The Shameless

 

Original Title: The Shameless

Directed by: Konstantin Bojanov

Length: 114 min.

Country: India, Bulgaria

Year: 2024

Premiere: Cannes 2024

Synopsis: On the run, sex worker Renuka gets to a city of north India where she falls in love with a young devadasi initiate.

RATING: 3/5

 

REVIEW

The Shameless is a caleidoscopic film: it can be approached from any side, and it can be source for a different sort of discussion - because at its heart, it is a film that manages to capture with lucidity a most multifaceted society. A political thriller, a film about LGBT topics, The Shameless is many things in one film.

This is not to state that The Shameless is a particularly complex film or something that is hard to grasp for wider audiences: the thriller/romantic heart of the film is developed in a way that makes the film engaging, if not exciting. This "mainstream appeal" does sometimes set the film back, when it makes the film slightly less distinct and more conformist, mainly from a perspective of aesthetics.

Despite bing made by a western filmmaker - it does not ever feel as having an "orientalist gaze": it avoids any classic stereotypes and manages to make a commentary about real socio-political situations in India in a subtle way.

An apparently difficult duo, that of Anasuya Sengupta and Omara, but that slowly unfolds and consolidates in a great on-screen chemistry. Perhaps it is in the intense performances that Bojanov's direction succeeds the most.

What starts as a possibly typical social drama slowly becomes more interesting, as a unexpectedly a subplot involves hallucinations, and Bojanov's background at Fine Arts studies pays off through truly appealing visual moments.

The Shameless is certainly a film that is important for indian society right now, and proves Bojanov's talent in representing insightfully some very different ethnographic realities.