Embers from the East
SANJAY KUMAR
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The festival of award-winning Assamese films held recently in the Capital left viewers enriched and sensitised.
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All the seven films justified the festival theme, which was the Role of Cinema in Social Awakening.
A MEMORABLE OCCASION Renowned Assamese director Jahnu Barua being felicitated at the film festival.
If you have to transform reality, you first need to film it.
Jean Luc Godard
As the wintry chill descended on the Capital, the filmgoers were charged with the smouldering images from the cinema of the East. The three-day festival of award-winning Assamese films organised at the Siri Fort auditorium by the Assam State Film (Finance & Development) Corporation in collaboration with the Directorate of Film Festivals of India under the aegis of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, was indeed a visual treat to warm up our cold conscience. This was the first-ever Assamese film festival in Delhi organised jointly by the Assam Government and the Union I&B Ministry.
All the seven films of this regional fare from Assam justified the theme of the fest, namely, "Role of Cinema in Social Awakening". The films, in general, were a refreshing break for the filmgoer in Capital, sedated with the mindless and insipid content of mainstream Bollywood. Cinema seemed to mirror social realities, for a change. They spoke the language of the marginalised, the outcaste and the oppressed. There was variety in themes and versatility in treatment.
Scenes from films shown at the festival.
The inaugural film, "Kalsandhya" (Twilight) was a tribute to one of the doyens of Assamese cinema, Dr. Bhabendra Nath Saikia. A much acclaimed film, it draws on the vexed theme of insurgency and its corrosive impact on the personal life of a society. A widow, a victim of insurgency, encounters a reformed insurgent and in the ensuing drama, we see a bold interrogation of the motives of extremism and its destructive spell on innocent lives. Violence in public life has been aesthetically suggested through the trauma of the characters.
The second film, "Firingoti" (The Spark), was by the renowned Assamese director, Jahnu Barua. This film takes up another pertinent theme of the `son of the soil' debate. In Assam, it is said, the notion of `local' and `outsider' is usually determined even within a distance of a hundred kilometres. It also highlights the social price of education and unemployment. A young widow, Ritu, discovers the non-existence of her school where she gets an appointment as a teacher. The story narrates the ineptness of the bureaucracy, apathy of the society and the grit and determination of a young woman to undo the inefficient system. An inspiring film, indeed.
Wonderful essays
The film fest also showcased some wonderful cinematic essays on environment and its mindless destruction. "Juye Poora Xoon" (The Self Triumphs) by Sanjib Sabhapandit and "Hagramayao Jinahari" (Rape in the Virgin Forest) by Jwngdao Bodosa are the two instances when environmentalism found creative echoes in cinematic images. "Juye Poora Xoon" brought home the trials and tribulations of a displaced people with the wanton clearing of greenery for human settlements. The resultant mayhem and disasters drive the poor populace to the brink. They resolve to go back to nature. In a way, a search for one's own self.
In "Hagramayao Jinahari", we see the entwining of the personal life of a poor forest dweller and the nefarious designs of the modern day forest mafia in collusion with the State. He is forced to work for the criminals who loot the timber and in the process also gang rape his daughter, Mithingga (Nature). The cry of the violated becomes the weep of the bleeding woods.
The issue of gender justice is harped through three evocative films, "Adajya" (The Flight) by Santwana Bardoloi and "Laaz" (Shame) by Manju Bora and Sanjib Hazorika's "Matsyagondha" (The Outraged). "Adajya tellingly essays the harrowing times of the Brahmin widows of Assam, condemned by the religious and caste orthodoxy and suffering patriarchal oppression. Hazorika's film mirrors the plight of the fisherfolk and the plight of their women in a village plagued by caste and opium.
The last film "Laaz" was indeed a fitting finale to the festival. Bora movingly tells the tale of a young girl, Ila, from a fishing community, struggling against all odds to study at school. She gives up in despair as she can't afford even innerwear! Her `shame' being a transferred epithet for our own era of designer lingerie. As the noted Assamese film critic, Utpal Borpujari, observed "These films have an universal appeal. They are in Assamese, but can be topical anywhere else too."
All in all, the treat from the East left one richer, sensitised and thoughtful.
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