Elephants In The Fog review: When you make a conscious choice of highlighting the kinnar community in a small Nepal town for a film that talks of love and pain and desire, and it gets selected at the 79th edition Cannes film festival, the first film from Nepal to have done so, it’s tempting to look at that choice as something that may appeal to a Western palate.
But one of the best parts about Abhinash Bikram Shah’s debut feature, which created history not only for its selection but by winning the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regards section, is that it doesn’t exoticise the Metis or the ‘third gender’. The community is legally recognised in Nepal, just as it is in India, and it is equally hard in both South Asian neighbours for individuals to garner respect or respectable jobs: they eke out a meagre living by singing and dancing at births and marriages.
Pirati ( Pushpa Thing Lama), a middle-aged transwoman at the heart of this tender, affecting drama, falls in love with local male drummer ( Ashant Sharma), which is against the rules of the community, which privileges chastity and celibacy. Pirati’s adopted daughter Apsara ( Aliz Ghimire), a former sex worker, similarly has developed feelings for a rickshaw driver, and when she disappears, it pitchforks Pirati into a state of terrible distress. Her quest is multi-pronged, pointing at the constant invisibilisation of those of who are ‘not like us’ : have you ever seen the folk, wearing their vivid, bright colours coming to your car at a traffic signal and hastily rolled up your window? Yes, you know, and are complicit.
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You can see what the director, whose first feature this is ( one of his short films ‘Lori’ competed in the Short Film category in 2022 ; he’s also written for Min Bahadur Bham’s films, Shambhala, which was officially selected at the Berlinale in 2024 ), is going for: he doesn’t shy away from showing rituals– the initiation of a new member is a celebration almost like a marriage, with palms colored red, with the matriarch ( Umesh Pandey), speaking in sibilant whispers, giving her blessings.
The portrait of a community under constant pressure, at the receiving end of disdain from ‘regular’ people, and opprobrium from within their own for doing something that comes naturally to humans– falling in love– is rendered with precision, and an authenticity : the performances feel natural and lived in.
Pirati wants to run away to India– you see pictures of India Gate with her– with her man, the neighbouring country seen as a viable escape. That India isn’t exactly a bed of roses for trans people, who have been facing a tidal wave of difficulties, is ironic. But the local authorities in their own country are so unsympathetic to Pirati’s woes, that you can see why she feels a strong sense of abandonment.
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The village in which the film is set is surrounded by forests where the elephants live. The majestic creatures are both symbol and metaphor here– of animals being hunted by humans for their own profit, and pleasure. In this context, the kinnars’ strong sense of kinship, persecuted as they are, makes eminent sense. When these gentle giants appear, ears flapping, trumpeting, it’s almost as if they are stepping forward in solidarity. If no one else will step up, they will be both companion and comfort.
At the heart of this film is Pushpa Thing Lama’s Pirati, whose search for Apsara is intertwined with discovery of self. The cinematography brings alive the contrast between the crowded homes of the kinnars and the dappled light of the forest is a delight. With the recognition here at Cannes, Nepal has built on its growing reputation of a nation whose filmmakers are taking their own stories, and bringing them to the world. The Un Certain Regard Jury prize is well deserved.
Elephants In The Fog movie cast: Pushpa Thing Lama, Deepika Yadav, Jasmine Bishwokaram, Umesha Pandey, Aliz Ghimire, Aashant Sharma, Dura Sanjay Kumar Gupta
Elephants In The Fog movie director: Abhinash Bikram Shah
Elephants In The Fog movie rating: 3 stars
