Critique: Brahman Naman

***SPOILERS***

The friend who recommended ‘Skins’ to me recommended this film to me because it had interesting observations about the perception male Brahmins (the priestly and highest Indian caste) have on the rest of the world. As a comedy, this film is obviously caricature and thus the attitudes it contains cannot be taken as a true representation.

            The film focuses on a Brahmin* called Naman and his group of sexually frustrated friends who exhibit stereotypical ‘nerd’ characteristics who quiz competitively. I think the first scene, which was Naman shagging a fridge, perfectly sets the tone for the film.

            *’Brahman’ is used for both the priestly caste and for Ultimate Reality/the True Self in Hinduism. It is common to see ‘Brahmin’ used for the priestly caste to avoid any confusion between the two.

This film struck me as having an ‘Inbetweeners’ vibe to it. Neither is something I enjoy or would watch again. It was two and a half hours long so definitely never again. There were a lot of scenes that seemed to have nothing to do with the plot or didn’t add to the story in anyway and that was odd.

            There were a few particularly graphic scenes. In one, a prostitute spat semen out a window. In another, Naman stuck his penis into a fish tank and you saw it ejaculate. Both were clearly fake but it caught me by surprise nonetheless.

            Plus there were two very questionable points as well. There was the constant ‘joke’ of ‘raping your cow’ (cows are sacred in India. That’s as blasphemous as joking about raping [this in itself is highly deplorable]… any deity. Such as the deity in Christianity. Not so funny, is it? Then there was the scene of Naman’s admirer almost having sex. How that happened and why that stopped were very upsetting.

            Obviously these questionable points do happen in real life so I’m not objecting per se to seeing these represented in a creative project. But I found them disturbing to not think about in a negative light.

This film clearly wasn’t my thing but there were good things! A few quotations that stuck out at me as funny/interesting/informative.

‘”This time, I hope it’s the cursed minorities who die.”

“Sir, surely that’s a bit bigoted?”

“We Brahmans are the biggest bigots and racists on this planet. Revel in your supremacy.”

 “What do I do?” [he asks, being in love]

“Talk to her. It’s been known to work.”

“Don’t you realise who she is? She’s you, Naman. Female Naman. So if you fuck her, it would be like fucking yourself. That makes it homo sex.”

“India has a proud tradition of quizzing. Indians have a thirst for knowledge. We Indians also reveal in sharing said knowledge. Trivia, esoterica, science, technology…”