For parallel cinema aficionados
SARAT CHANDRA
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Select works of inimitable directors made for an arty treat.
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Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Since technology and commercial consideration are inherent in cinema, art movies are precariously placed: unless art film buffs seek them they are forever canned. In this respect, The Film Society of Bhubaneswar is doing a commendable job by arranging screening of art films from time to time.
Recently, it arranged screening of a number of movies by some well known names like Govinda, Arabindan, Ritwik Ghatak, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and John Abraham.
This reviewer had the opportunity to see three films — Bastuhara (Malayam) by Aravindan, Subarnarekha (Bengali) by Ritwik Ghatak and John Abraham's Donkey in a Brahmin Village (Tamil).
Partition era
Ritwik Ghatak
In Bastuhara (Dispossed, 1991) Arabindan imaginatively portrays the theme of uprooted persons on two levels — the mass of refugees at the time of Bangladesh war (1971) and the plight of a family that was uprooted during India's partition in 1947. Arathi, a Bengali who was married to a Panicker, a Malayalee, is now a widow and has two children in their twenties. Two parallel stories unfold through the experiences of a single character — Kuttan — the refugee officer of the Eastern Region, who happens to be late Panicker's nephew.
In Kolkata, Kuttan comes across moving characters and events while engaged in tackling the problems of the disposed. Arathi's family was also disposed during India's partition days; she lives a life of poverty, and yet is determined to face hardships of life rather than take her share of her late husband's property.
Kuttan leaves for the Andaman Islands with a number of refugees who have to face a future an uncertain future similar to that of Arathi in Kolkata against Naxalism. Arabindan's narration is simple but with this he explores problems faced by refugees.
But Ritwik Ghatak's Subarnarekha (1962) is not that simple though the story also focuses on disposed persons. The story charts the destiny of Ishwar and his sister Sita, who face an uncertain future after the country's partition.
Social reality
But Ritwik Ghathak's black and white celluloid venture is complex. His story takes numerous twists and turns and deals with several issues. Even the story moves from the pastoral Subarnarekha riverside to the sleazy underbelly of Kolkata.
John Abrahan's Donkey in the Brahmin Village is a social satire in which we find a village full of chaste Hindus who first blame a donkey for a lot of misdeeds and then glorify it for unusual happenings like a paralytic patient suddenly getting cured, a woman considered sterile turning pregnant and more.
In fact, the same villagers who killed the harmless donkey as harbinger of evil now consider it as a god of good fortunes and arrange a ceremonial funeral for its skull. Abraham narrates the story with satire.
He has used minimal dialogues but uses sound cleverly to create the necessary impact.
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