Dee for Drama: Deepanjana Pal on Deadpool & Wolverine, and Barzakh

For the ageing star, violence acts as a pathway to desire. Fighting is very much a love language in Deadpool & Wolverine. And desire is everything in Barzakh.

At a mid-week morning show of Deadpool & Wolverine, the theatre is almost full.

Wolverine and Deadpool. Culturally speaking, there’s a skittishness we feel about depicting older men as desirable. This is possibly why we’re now seeing so many films in which heroes establish their desirability through feats of physical strength, as opposed to romantic dedication.

In the queue for 3D glasses is a young man on the phone. “Right now there’s an important family event I can’t get out of, but I’ll be available after lunch,” he says. When he hangs up, his companion teases, “Family event, huh?” The man replies, “I’m here to pay my respect to Deadpool-da and Wolverine kaku.”

I lost sight of this distant relative of Deadpool and Wolverine once inside, but he must have contributed to the cheer that filled the darkened room when Hugh Jackman finally lost his shirt in the film’s predictable climax. Deadpool & Wolverine is more of a mediocre comedy special by Ryan Reynolds than a film, but the bar is low for superhero movies these days, and it doesn’t feel surprising that a trash-talking motormouth who presents himself as a truthteller is popular today.

Wait for it to arrive on streaming, however, and you’ll miss what makes it fun: the experience of watching it with fans. Even if one hasn’t followed the saga of the Fox and Disney deal, the jokes Reynolds cracks at its expense land because of the surrounding laughter.

And when Wolverine stands shirtless, one will add to whatever noise the audience is making.

Culturally speaking, there’s a skittishness we feel about depicting older men as desirable. This is possibly why we’re now seeing so many films in which heroes establish their desirability through feats of physical strength, as opposed to romantic dedication (which usually works best for a younger man). Both flash their bodies, and for the same reason — to entice the viewer — but the mood is starkly different. These days, desire is often sublimated so that it can appear disguised in violence.

Just think of how audiences erupted at the sight of a wrinkled Shah Rukh Khan in Jawan (2023), his action sequences choreographed to showcase the actor at his enticing best.

When the silver foxes aren’t ready to retire, and can command a loyal fanbase in a way that younger heroes cannot, action movies seem the safest option. (Deadpool teases Wolverine that he’ll be doing these movies until he’s 90, but chances are Reynolds will be too, especially given that Deadpool is a masked hero.)

Fighting is very much a love language in Deadpool & Wolverine. Expect to also be poked in the eye with subtext, as Deadpool uses commentary to decode every tight close-up and innuendo-laden line of dialogue.

The wisecracking hero falls back on comedy to protect tender sensibilities from erotic and homoerotic possibilities. No, that moment of tingliness was just a build-up to a punchline, not a tricky attempt to hold a mirror up to your longings. Phew!

A rare recent work that leans comfortably into desire for the male body is Asim Abbasi’s Barzakh, starring Fawad Khan.

A rare recent work that leans comfortably into desire for the male body is Asim Abbasi’s Barzakh, starring Fawad Khan and Sanam Saeed. The six-episode series quickly unravels and becomes unwatchable, but it begins with a gorgeous sequence in which cinematographer Mo Azmi and actor Khushhal Khan perform the extraordinary feat of making the thin moustache seem impossibly sensual.

Desire is a dangerous, forbidden thing in Barzakh, but Abbasi and Azmi celebrate it through beautiful, fragmentary moments, such as the scene in which a young boy watches a man bathing, or the shot that shows Fawad applying kohl around his eyes.

The show’s overwrought attempts at being poetic and brainy do it no favours, but its depictions of longing and infatuation with beauty do afford the viewer some exquisite, unsettling moments. Moments that turn a two-dimensional scene into something almost tactile; all because of a gaze framed by desire.

Maybe it’s the vulnerability inherent in desire that makes audiences feel more comfortable with heroes who lash out than with those who sit with their longings. Still, in the midst of so much that is bland and messy, Wolverine and Deadpool do offer a rare thing: pleasure.

(To reach Deepanjana Pal with feedback, write to @dpanjana on Instagram)