Transcending barriers
RAHI GAIKWAD
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The recent MAMI festival threw up a plethora of films on gender and culture divides.
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The Partition was perhaps the biggest physical divide in the Indian subcontinent leaving deep-seated scars on either side.
A quest for the whole in the mire of cultural, religious and gender divides was seen to dominate some of the Indian films showcased under various banners at the recently concluded film festival by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), held early this month. The Partition was perhaps the biggest physical divide in the Indian subcontinent leaving deep-seated scars on either side. For a generation of Indians this tragic part of history became a common basis for hatred of Muslims. Just like Sanjay Banerjee in the UK-based filmmaker Sangeeta Dutta's movie ‘Life Goes On' (2009) from the section Film India Worldwide.
Banerjee has built a life in multicultural London, but is compelled to fight ghosts from the past, as he endeavours to bond with his three daughters, after the sudden death of his wife.
Many themes
Sorties of shattered lives of bourgeois Bengali familie post-Partition have found dramatic representation in the works of the revered Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak. Dutta who makes a forthright reference to Ghatak in the movie, weaves in a subtext that explores the effect of Partition on the Bengali consciousness.
“Yes Ghatak's ‘Meghey Dhaka Tara', ‘Subarnarekha' and ‘Titash ekti nadir naam' are seminal film texts for me which shaped my understanding of the Bengali identity, the fragmentation of psyche with partition and the tragedy of displacement. This is the story of my grandfather and father's generation. Every day I have felt the growing urgency to tell this story.
Nine years in London and I have known the diaspora better, shared their stories, seen many conflict stories, trauma and memories un-negotiated, age old prejudices gaining new currency in the current age of Islamophobia. This story needed to be told urgently. About a man who faces old demons and learns to turn towards the future. It brings a positive message, of conflict, choice and that love can conquer all,” Ms. Dutta says.
There are many things Mr. Banerjee must come to terms with, but what he finds the hardest is accepting his youngest daughter's Muslim boyfriend. The taste of a composite culture is offered by the film's eclectic soundtrack –embodying the message of transcending barriers and embracing the new.“As a practising musician I have always felt that London has a wonderful multicultural musicscape- a space for traditional, classical and all that wonderful jazz and fusion. My son, young Soumik Datta represents this world as a classical sarodist, a member of the popular jazz band Samay and as a young contemporary composer. Javed Akhtar has rendered exquisite translations of Tagore songs, for the first time for film music. His involvement and the process of translation has been fascinating and enriching. It's been a transaction between the worlds of Bengal, Bollywood and London diaspora.”
A racy, edgy depiction of multiethnic London was in Sarjit Bains' ‘Cash and Curry' (2009) – a quirky tale of Raj and his friends who are on the run from local drug lords, where street slang and offensive terms for Asians and Africans offer a cultural commentary of their own.
Gender
If there are differences that cut across cultures, one such would be the idea of masculinity and femininity constructed in patriarchal terms. Ravi Jadhav's Marathi movie ‘Natrang' (2009), categorised in the ‘Above The Cut' section, uses the medium of performing arts to probe gender divides and notions of sexual identity; how these identities unite in the figure of ‘Nachya' – a popular transgender character central to Marathi folkdance theatre called Tamasha (spectacle).
With his robust physique, handsome face and passion for the Tamasha, Guna is hailed as a hero in a small village in Maharashtra. However, his own dream of becoming a theatre artist leads him to take up the challenge of performing the role of Nachya.
An arduous journey marked by devastating experiences of social outrage, rejection, ridicule and exploitation follows. Arriving at a holistic view of gender, he says, “There is something of a female in a male and something of a male in a female.” In Rituparno Ghosh's film ‘Abohomaan' (The Eternal) (2009) there is a pure artistic desire to understand the medium of film itself and the relationship between the artist and the subject – bringing to mind the mythical Greek story of Pygmalion, who fell in love with the statue of a woman Galatea he sculpted or the more well known ‘My Fair Lady'. Ghosh's reference point is Binodini Dasi, the doyenne of 19th centuryBengali theatre.
Inclusive agenda
Many regional language films were part of the Indian repertoire at MAMI, including those in English made by filmmakers of Indian origin.
With Indian directors, one saw an effort to transcend the bounds of mainstream cinema and with the directors of the diaspora an effort to bring fresh perspectives to the story of the Indian experience on foreign shores.
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