New Delhi, Aug 9: Rii Sen, who won a best actress award at Osian's for her bold act in “Cosmic Sex”, says sexuality is a cult for her and she wants to push it to the borderline in cinema so that it becomes extreme and dangerous.
Rii has been into the subject of ‘dehotatwa' (worshiping through one's own body) from the days of her documentary “Love in India”.
“It has been a journey for me for the last six to seven years observing the fakirs and being friends with them, so I was looking for this opportunity to come way rather feeling scared about the body factor,” she says about the bold scenes in “Cosmic Sex”, directed by Amitabh Chakraborty.
According to her, in Indian cinema, there is no concept of physical acting unless one plays a bandit or a maid. Her sexuality is heavily influenced by films like Kim Ki-duk's “Isle”, Lars von Trier's “The Idiots”, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's “21 Grams” and Gaspar Noe's “Enter The Void” and “Irreversible”.
“I want to push my sexuality in cinema to the borderline where it becomes extreme and dangerous. Sexuality is a cult for me,” Rii told PTI.
In “Cosmic Sex”, which had its world premiere at the just-concluded Osian's Cinefan here, Chakraborty explores the possibility of using sex to achieve God, the connection between sex and spirituality.
Chakraborty was inspired by the fakirs in Bengal into making this film.
“I observed my director throughout the process of ‘Comic Sex'. Understanding him was like understanding the film, and my realisation was that I am among very few lucky woman who has met men like Amitav or Q (Qaushiq Mukherjee, director of another bold film ‘Gandu') who understands a woman than a woman herself,” Rii says.
She feels the general Indian audience is scared of her films, because “I leave no space for their shame, I make them go nude with me”.
Winning the best actress in the ‘Indian competition' section was a great feeling for Rii who says “It always feels great to be acknowledged.”
In the film, 18-year-old Kripa (played by Ayushman Mitra) one night has a fight with his father over his stepmother. There is an accident and his father dies. Scared, he runs away from home.
The night throws up characters and encounters for Kripa—Devi the street walker, Jonaki her transgender pimp and Kripa is entrapped in the web of love, sex and jealousy. He murders again. Jonaki dies. Kripa runs on.
At dawn, he sits by the banks of the Ganges. The serene river soothes his frayed nerves. A woman emerges out of the water.
There is no end to this night. She is his dead mother coming alive. He follows her. She takes him into her house and adopts him as her son. She gives him a new life, another birth.
