Funny Boy(2020)
dir. Deepa Mehta
Coming of age while a country comes apart.
Where to watch: Streaming on NetflixLetterboxd ↗
A Tamil boy in 1970s-80s Sri Lanka comes to understand his own sexuality just as ethnic tensions between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority escalate toward the violence of Black July. Adapted from Shyam Selvadurai's novel.
Why it’s here
Punk in refusing to separate Arjie's queerness from the ethnic violence closing in around his family — both are treated by the world around him as things to be hidden or punished. Pedagogical in showing how personal and political repression reinforce each other in a household desperate to appear "normal."
Where This Film Lives
- Topics
- sri lankan civil war
Read Alongside
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A House for Mr Biswas
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