Capital I

Hey Capital I? Quick question; what the fuck was any of that? This is definitely one of the strangest and most inaccessible WLW movies I’ve ever seen.

It’s very difficult to describe anything about Capital I, including the bones of its plot. So I went to Wikipedia. Even this didn’t help. The film’s page is definitely written by the film’s creator. The plot is more of a film festival blurb than depiction of events. Best I’ve got is that the lead character is a young woman named Piyali. She’s unhappy with her boyfriend. But luckily has a beautiful, imaginary woman to do imaginary lesbian stuff with named Pooja. Piyali becomes fascinated by a sort of urban legend about a being who may or may not exist called Capital I. Capital I left a bunch of phrases and pictures inside a room locked from the inside. Piyali goes to her old physics professor, Professor Misra and they discuss Capital I and various philosophical concepts.

Capital I dubs itself an “existential psychodrama.” So, it’s not so much about the plot here as the philosophical elements. Capital I has really big ideas. Like, the nature of existence big. I want to establish that maybe my dislike for this movie is that I don’t understand what the film was trying to say about anything. And maybe that’s my issue as a viewer. But there’s a scene in which a character explains Plato’s allegory of the cave in a long and unclear way. This is a text I’m familiar with and yet still, Capital I’s explanation confused me. Whatever personal failings I have, Capital I also refuses to explain anything in an easily accessible way. It reminds me a lot of reading theory in university. Writers using big words just to dress up basic ideas. But I fear that Capital I’s dense wording dresses up a hollow centre.

So, maybe Capital I works as some sort of philosophical manifesto I’m not smart enough for. But it doesn’t translate super well into a movie. There’s little attempt to dress up any of the existential theories in any sort of over arcing story or natural feeling conversation. Piyali and the professor just sit down and immediately start in about “the menstrual cycle of the mind” or whatever. With ideas this big, it would have helped to have characters have some sort of personality or smaller story that acts as an entry way. Instead, Piyali and Professor Misra are blank slates of a character ready to be mouthpieces for whatever dense theory is being expressed.

Visually, Capital I isn’t there yet either. Scenes surrounding the philosophical explanation often get surreal. I’m cool with this. I also respect the intense limitations of the fact that the film was made for about $400. But frankly, Capital I hasn’t quite worked out the visual language of cinema. This isn’t some Terrence Malik shit where the seemingly random visuals of nature tie back to the story or themes. In Capital I, it seems full on random. Some of it is nice to look at, but little of it supports the story or themes. I don’t have any faith that the black and white shot of an iguana was part of the broader message. It feels more like they went out to film some nature, happened to capture and iguana and then put it in black and white because that’s art, baby.

So, with the gay stuff, we have to ask the philosophical question is it gay if she’s imaginary? Well, it’s sure not heterosexual to imagine a pretty lady who likes to cuddle you and tell you how men are bad at sex. Still, this relationship between Piyali and the imaginary woman doesn’t get a lot of focus. Genuinely, Piyali has an out of focus sex scene and I don’t know if it’s with her boyfriend or Pooja. Pooja is always seen in red. Piyali also starts seeing a girl dressed in red who Professor Misra calls “The Red.” I’m assuming this is the same character but who knows. Piyali says she created “The Red” from her mind. The Professor suggests maybe she was implanted there. I dunno guys, all of this seems like an elaborate way to describe a lesbian tulpa.

The only scene of any note on a lesbian angle is one where Piyla and Pooja have a conversation with a set of scales imposed in front of them because metaphor! It’s a brief scene that discusses being queer in an unaccepting society in the most confusing, existential way possible. By the end of it, Piyali says she doesn’t want Pooja to be around anymore because she isn’t a lesbian. After minor pushback, Pooja just…. disappears. Lesbian feelings vanquished! Or, maybe not. She shows up later to be out of focus in a yoga pose while Piyali reflects on why she’s so inhibited to feel depressed, whatever that means.

I’ve never understood a WLW movie as little as I understood this one. Overall, I think the movie is bad. But that’s with the stipulation that I didn’t get it. Still, bad as I think it is, I did find it pretty fascinating. Not because of the philosophical stuff the movie was spouting, but for the film’s very existence. If nothing else, Capital I is a singular viewing experience. It’s inscrutable, pretentious and very low budget. I do actually respect the film for how cosmically big it swung with such a tiny budget. But when it comes down to it, I didn’t get and didn’t enjoy the film. It’s also not that gay so it loses some marks there as well.

Overall rating: 2.3/10

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