It’s a tale as old as time, as universal as sunshine: the teenager’s thirst for sex, and the absurd lengths that teenager will take to have it. It could be called a quest, even. In fact, the theme is so universal that many of the world’s most popular art (Superbad! Romeo and Juliet!) has built lasting narratives around it. And here’s another one: Brahman Naman, an Indian film that could very well be the year’s best low-brow comedy.
Directed by Q and written by Naman Ramachandran, Brahman Naman stars Shashank Arora as Naman, a nerdy virgin and star of Bangalore University’s misfit quiz team. The team gets invited to participate in one of the country’s biggest competitions, and so Naman and his buddies travel to Calcutta, hoping to lose their virginity along the way. Somehow, a person’s penis gets tied to a blade of a ceiling fan, which is a thing that has, as far as I know, not yet been portrayed in a (mainstream) film.
Brahman Naman is set to premiere at Sundance this week. The first trailer is below, and it’s sufficiently stylish, intercut with titles reminiscent of Wes Anderson. The whole thing has that easy, twee vibe about it, so here’s hoping that this English-language film could be arriving in American theaters sometime soon.