As the Toronto International Film Festival approaches, it seems like a good time to reflect on the film that got away. Everyone who has been to a film festival has at least one of these, and probably even a list of them. The film that was sold out. The film that just wouldn’t fit into your schedule. The film that you wanted to take a gamble on, but which none of your friends wanted to see.

If you’re unlucky, the name of ‘the one that got away’ continues to haunt you months later, but a year after the festival there’s still no sign of it in cinemas and, after fruitless Googling, you conclude that it was never even released on DVD. It is well and truly lost: maybe for the best, as the film might not have been as good as you thought it would be. But you’ll never know: a few distributors saw it and made the decision for you. That’s the saddest part of going to a film festival. Every time you select a film by a little-known director, you run the risk of disappointment, of regretting that you didn’t instead choose the latest masterpiece by the established director. But every time you don’t go for that obscure film that intrigues you, you risk never having the opportunity again. I’ve experienced this with a number of films: “Apron Strings” from New Zealand never seemed to make it outside the festival circuit; Aida Begić’s “Snow” had a theatrical release in only a handful of European countries. “Linda Linda Linda,” Yobuhiro Yamashita’s film about a Japanese high school girl-band, is only available on DVD in the US. There is even further limited DVD availability for “Quill,” which looks to be an even cuter Japanese film following the life of a guide dog from the day of its birth.

Fortunately, there are even more great films which finally do get their release, either in theatres or on DVD: what a nice surprise it is when, like the name of an old friend, the title of that film you’ve been wanting to see for so long suddenly pops up at your local arts cinema. More often, though, the film that got away will never have a theatrical release, so I’ve recently been trying to catch a few ‘films that got away’ on DVD. One such film was Rituparno Ghosh’s “Choker Bali”: I can’t remember why I wasn’t able to see it at the Toronto International Film Festival, but I can still remember which cinema it was playing at, and how hard it was for me to skip it. Although I also remember that it didn’t get fantastic reviews, a festival-standard film starring my favourite Bollywood actress is certainly not one I’d want to miss.

Based on a novel by the famous Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore, the title “Choker Bali” translates literally as ‘speck in the eye’. It is the story of a young, beautiful widow named Binodini (Aishwarya Rai), and takes place in Bengal during the period leading up to partition. Initially, an arranged marriage is attempted between Binodini and either of two brothers, Mahendra and Bihari. Both brothers refuse without even having met Binodini. Now a widow, Binodini befriends Mahendra’s wife, Ashalata, and goes to live with their family. She begins a love affair with Mahendra, who clearly regrets not having married her in the first place.

“Choker Bali’s” intriguing story is a more credit to Tagore than the director. The film’s own narrative is a little chaotic: although every viewer will ultimately be able to figure out what is going on, there are several details which cause confusion. The film’s translators worked hard to convey cultural information in the small space that is allowed for subtitles, but audiences who are not very familiar with that part of the world may find it difficult, at least initially, to keep track of the characters’ names and relationships, and to understand the film’s historical allusions.

The decision to use the film’s original name for its international release is not necessarily a problem. Maybe its inadvertent evocation of the English verb ‘to choke’ is apt, given that the film deals with the suppression of passionate emotion (the other half of its title, incidentally, is ‘A Passion Play’). The use of the name in the film is a little confusing, though: ‘Chokher Bali’ is a playful nickname which Ashalata first uses for Binodini, hiding her friend’s identity in order to tease Mahendra. However, Binodini also calls Ashalata ‘Bali’. The use of this nickname in addition to the characters’ real names was not the only source of confusion.

The film presents its characters so quickly that it leaves the audience scrambling to keep up with the information presented. Like the allusions to British rule and partition, the characters’ names and relationships are presented briefly and casually, as though the director assumes his audience is already familiar with them. It is not always important to know the characters names in a film: I have watched entire Hollywood movies, known exactly who everyone was, yet have been unable to refer to the characters by name when discussing the movie later on. But in “Choker Bali” there are frequent references to characters who are not there, as you would expect in a film that deals with romance and intrigue: it is quite annoying, then, for spectators who feel they are not quite up to speed with who’s who, who’s where, and who’s related to whom. Some audiences will be willing to go with the flow, and wait for things to become clear, but the director needs to remember that a shoddy exposition is going to alienate many potential viewers.

There is a certain psychological ambiguity in the film, but happily this source of mystery worked much better. It gradually becomes clear that Binodini is interested in Mahendra, but she keeps a composed facial expression that always masks her feelings to some degree, which is true of all the characters in the film. This subtlety creates a wonderful element of suspense in the film: characters’ feelings become clear only gradually, if at all, and it is never certain how (or whether) they will act on them. Binodini suspects that Behari is in love with his brother Mahendra’s wife, for example, but here too the film spares us the lovelorn gazes that would make his feelings obvious. I attribute this effect to an unusual degree of discretion on the director’s part, and I think it is one of the film’s greatest strengths.

Although it is true that cinema is not able to probe characters’ thoughts as easily as literature, not all literary adaptations are so skilfully done. Instead of exposing the characters’ secret thoughts through diaries or dreams, the director adopts a more skilful and arguably realistic approach. He avoids giving the viewer privileged access to the characters’ thoughts, which no other characters in the film would have. Instead, he invites the audience to simply observe and listen, waiting for characters’ words and actions to reveal their thoughts and feelings, sometimes in only an incomplete way. In this way, the experience is arguably similar to the way in which one often has to ‘read’ other people’s emotions in real life, when it would be impossible or indiscreet to ask direct questions.

While thought and emotion are presented with such skill, history seems inexpertly woven into the film. It comes up sporadically as a sort of invisible backdrop to the romance: it is present almost exclusively through verbal references rather than physical demonstrations. The difference between Binodini and Ashalata is underlined, as Binodini received an education in English from a British woman, while Ashalata has assimilated the traditional view that education is bad for women. Behari and his brother Mahendra seem to be progressive in their views, believing that widows should have the right to remarry and it is this controversial view that is the most important political element in the film, at least overtly.

The historical context of nationhood, with its accompanying issues of independence, unity and division, is more important to this film than its subtle presence would have us believe, however. This is why it seems a shame that the film did not foreground partition more insistently. As much as I dislike the classic device of opening the film with an explanation of the film’s setting, it would have helped international audiences to deepen their appreciation of “Choker Bali” beyond its status as a mildly political romance. As the film stands, it is possible to ignore questions of nation, and focus instead on the characters’ relationships. If you ignore history, though, the film’s final intertitle seems like a red herring. At the end of the film, Binodini has left Mahendra’s house, to avoid causing any more anguish in his family. Her letter explains why she has left, but she does not say where she is going. Ashalata is pregnant, and expecting to give birth soon. One of the brothers goes out, though it is unclear whether he is going to look for Binodini. This open ending is sealed with an intertitle, announcing that Bengal was partitioned ‘in spite of all opposition’. Considering the relatively minor role that history has played up to this point in the film, making the final focus historical suggests that the audience should read “Choker Bali’s” human relationships as an allegory of national bonds, divisions and tensions. If the director was trying to make the parallel a subtle one, however, he has succeeded too well: unless one has above-average knowledge of the history of Bengal, the film’s symbolism is likely to be lost.