Making a film on a slice of history has its obvious
advantages and disadvantages. The prime advantage being the event or the fact
that is well-laid in the mind of the audience prior to the viewing which helps
the director to take some narrative liberties in establishing the storyline.
However this alone can act as a disadvantage where every deviation from the
popular notion calls for a beating. Debutant director Bedabrata Pain in
choosing the armed uprising of Chittagong as the
basis of his first film has played both the cards cautiously – the incident
which is one of the initial armed rebellions against the mighty British was not
that known outside of Bengal (the geographic land is in Bangladesh
now). Making the film in Hindi for a Pan-Indian audience and feeding them with
the seeds of patriotism is a smart move to ensure that your film reaches the
audience. The uprising which was spear-headed by Master-da Surya Sen (a school
teacher) is popular till this date for Master-da’s heroics and his stoic
determined resistance to the British. What the director has done in this film
is to show it from an observer’s perspective who happens to be involved for
real and whom the director met briefly. Alongside, in making Jhunku (the
observer) as the protagonist, the director had the scope to fictionalize the
film and thereby taking the focus off Master-da alone.
Chittagong is quite fascinating as it did put forward a
forgotten part of Indian history with a lot of care. Interestingly during the freedom struggle and
most notably the early part of it there were pockets in undivided India which
showed maximum resistance and resilience. If Punjab and Maharashtra were one
then Bengal was the other. Unfortunately, with
the Partition of India the two states which suffered most were Punjab and Bengal. Yet with the Independent India, with the physical
proximity of the capital being Delhi, Punjab and its martyrs got some recognition from the
sovereign state. Bengal on the other hand probably missed on that account a bit
– the reason why the incidents like the Chittagong
uprising went amiss for the general mass as well as the students of history as
well.
The director had taken efforts to rummage history
not only for the overt factual details but also in creating an environment that
reminisces of a forgotten past. This means that the costume and the art
direction enlivens the past not only in the look but also in the feel. The
other interesting debate that any period-piece film has to deal with (and when
the characters are only a century old with documented photographs) is whether
the reel-characters resemble the real characters or not. Like in Khelein Hum
Jee Jaan Sey by Ashutosh Gowariker on the same Chittagong uprising of 1930, apart from
Abhishek Bachchan and Deepika Padukone who played Master-da and Kalpana Datta
respectively, many other characters looked similar to their historical
counterparts. Bedabrata Pain never
really thrived for that and the narrative being little known to most didn’t
create much of a problem either.
The strength of the film is in its narrative though
– Master-da, a school teacher who was a revolutionary as well, trained his
students mostly between 14-16 years of age to combat and to use weapons. Soon
with his clinical mind Master-da understood that to combat the British, courage
and fearlessness were not the only ingredients of success, he needed to have the
weapons which the British had to match their strength. Towards this he
masterminded a plan to attack five different locations in a single night – from
Railway tracks to the Telegraph office and finally the European club which
boasted “Dogs and Indian not allowed”. The ploy was half successful and the
troop retreated. A fierce exchange ensued and lasted for a few days and
eventually Master-da and his boys were captured by the British.
However that is not all of it. The film overgrows
on the 1930 uprising and we find a young Jhunku (after his stint in Andamans as
the youngest Indian freedom fighter ever to be deported) come back to his native
land and leading an uprising of the peasants to secure the crop they had
harvested. This is what sets Chittagong
apart from most of the other patriotic films on the Freedom movement. Whereas
most end with the betrayal and nullification of the struggle by the might of
the British Raj, Debabrata Pain believes that every incident of revolution is
linked with the other and it is that aspect of the human spirit which never
dies. In stripping the film off being
just a Master-da tale, the director creates a passion for the triumph of the
commoner – in rising and raising the bar for himself and everyone around him.
In showing Jhunku’s journey from a fearful teen-ager to a bold revolutionary,
the director conveys the message that revolutions get continued and the mantle
just passes over to the next generation.
Pain showed two sides of the British raj in having
a considerate and humane British officer whose concern for Jhunku and his
allegiance to the empire makes him affable. He is however balanced with oppressive
and tyrannical ones including Indians who had served the British in the
official ranks. The cinematography in parts is like painting – from the
saturated yellow colours of the fields to the black stillness of the
‘kalapani’, Bedabrata Pain ensured that his camera creates a sense of canvas on
which the drama enfolds. There were romantic suggestions but thankfully those
were underplayed and never diverted the attention. Acting is an asset as it
gels in an ensemble cast where no one strikes out as more important.
In an interview (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-luce/chittagong-film_b_1571071.html)
Bedabrata Pain reflects – “Chittagong is
a film about celebration of human spirit -- a spirit that refuses to give in
the face of injustice and adversity, and triumphs at the end. Today, when
there's a striving for change all over the world -- from Greece to Wall Street, from Africa to Asia -- I hope my film reminds everybody that David can
win the battle against Goliath.” And he mentions a very important aspect as
well - "Most of the revolutionaries survived and went on to lead mass
uprisings -- something that is integral to the narrative of Chittagong.
These uprisings played no small a role in the struggle for India's independence."
Chittagong in the ultimate analysis steals the heart. It
makes the viewer look at his history again, to feel proud of it and to be part
of a heritage. And deep down somewhere, the viewer also believes - ‘Kranti amar
rahe’, this is where Chittagong
as a film wins and becomes so important.
[This article is to be published in Deep Focus Vol 3]
