Monday, November 10, 2014

The cinema of Buddhadeb Dasgupta



[Published in Deep Focus Cinema, Sept - Nov 2014 Issue (Vol II - Issue III)

Buddhadeb Dasgupta is an Indian film-maker who had left his mark on the international scene with his first feature film Dooratwa way back in 1978. Since then with more than 15 feature films to his credit (and almost equal number of documentaries), Buddhadeb has garnered his place in the history of Indian cinema. As far as National awards and international recognition is concerned, he is probably second to the towering Satyajit Ray whose narrative style Dasgupta have consciously abandoned in lieu of a more surreal, poetic vision of the moving images. On the occasion of his 70th birthday in 2014, Federation of Film Societies of India, Kolkata chapter has published a collection of articles on and by Dasgupta in commemoration – The Poet of Celluloid.
The book is divided into five sections viz. ‘Discourse’ (analytical writings on his cinema and the prevalent motifs and visuals), ‘Dialogue’(Interviews), ‘First Person’ (articles by Buddhadeb Dasgupta), ‘Critique’ (Review of his feature films) and finally ‘Dossier’ for information about his various creative output.
Buddhadeb started off his journey with the examination of complex inter- and extra-personal psychology in the face of chaos and despair in his "humanist" trilogy—Dooratwa (Distance, 1978), Grihayuddha (Crossroads, 1982), and Andhi Gali (Cul-de-Sac, 1984). The next decade (1988-1998) led him to poignantly depict the crisis engulfing the creativity of an artist, his dilemma of compromise, integrity, and non-communication in the stylistic films of this era: Fera (The Return, 1988), Bagh Bahdur (Tiger Man, 1989), Charachar (The Shelter of Wings, 1993). With the Special Director's award for Uttara (2000) at the Venice Film Festival, his third decade in filmmaking commenced. Generally, the central theme of the early films of Dagupta has always been "waiting"—for food in Neem Annapurna (Bitter Morsel), or for the lover, for revolt, for dreams, and for the coming into existence of primitive art forms. In all of Dasgupta's films of the first decade, long narrow lanes populated by solitary figures were used as a motif signifying the stifling world in which we live. His next decade of films dealt with the loneliness of human beings in the magnificent mise-en-scene of the picturesque landscapes, coping with the staggering melange of human psychology—memory, alienation, disillusionment, obsessions, perceptions, insecurities, and dreams. The other motif that appears repeatedly in almost all of Dasgupta's films and mesmerizes us with its intrinsic power to communicate are ‘doors’. The half-closed door in Fera symbolizes the ignorance of a child towards the relationship between his mother and the central character. In Charachar, the fully open door brings new hope to the bird catcher, after the door leading to his wife finally closed itself to him. And in Lal Darja, the child could open a number of doors with his magic chant, something that he failed to open upon growing up. In a postmodern reading, Dasgupta's films shift their centers and bring a sense of an inevitable, impending doom emerging from the curse called "modern India" whose indigenous culture is mutilated and subjugated by a false sense of Western dependency.
In the ‘Discourse’ section Gowri Ramnarayan’s article ‘Verses in Celluloid: Buddhadeb Dasgupta and his works’ deserve special mention for being a good read and putting forth an analytical take on Dasgupta’s early films till the article was written in 1993. Equally thought-provoking is John W Hood’s ‘The Poet as Filmmaker’ where the writer draws the essential nuances and the differences between poetry and cinema and how often interchangeably we misuse the two. Hood elaborates the ‘salient poetical features of Buddhadeb’s films’ – “…as in poetry, the best images are effected with an economy of language; the presentation of image and idea must bear meticulous attention to the proper relationship with form; and the piece must have a clear integrity which accommodates the emotions as much as the mind…But we should also consider in this context the substance of his cinema, its values and predominant ideas, which are more akin to the interest of a poet than, say, a social realist”. Another interesting observation in the same article draws in the inevitability of a Ray legacy – “A major aspect of the legacy of Satyajit Ray is the importance of narrative and the facilitation of empathy with its setting, something basic to all of Ray’s films. And as long as Ray is held in an almost universal esteem bordering on hagiography, his way of making films is held by many to be the model for good cinema. This is not being critical of Ray; it is merely to give an example of another kind of cinema, a distinction which many cinema viewers and critics throughout the world are slow to recognize”. However from Swapner Din (Chased by Dreams, 2004) probably there is a lull in the interest within and outside on Dasgupta’s films. It is no wonder hence that the ‘Discourse’ section deals with critical essays on the director’s oeuvre which doesn’t touch upon any of his recent films made in the last 10 years or so. One reason may be because most of the articles were written quite sometime back. The collection could have taken the task to reflect on Dasgupta’s entire gamut by having critical essays on his films till date – the patterns, deviations and the paths lost in oblivion. That extra duty in a commemorative collection is unfortunately missed sorely and probably that is why there is no article which dealt with a plethora of documentary films which Dasgupta made as well. In today’s world of cinema where Documentary is slowly becoming a very important parallel to the so-called feature films this omission which probably not intentional and largely out of ignorance is not going to miss the eye. Critical questions as to why Buddhadeb has not made almost any Documentary since 2004 could have been raised here to understand the state of the creator’s mind and the inclination of his future creative pursuits.
Aruna Vasudev and Geeti Sen’s interviews are intriguing, dealing again with the early aspects of Buddhadeb’s works. Geeti Sen’s in particular has the interesting reference of the Films Division documentary of Dasgupta – The painter of eloquent silence on the legendary painter Ganesh Pyne.  Dasgupta’s vision towards other arts and the visual image as well as the interchanges between them is evident there. However the same interview is plagued with a basic problem where at several places the interviewer talks more than the interviewee, thereby failing to elicit insightful views from the director. Vishal Verma’s recent interview is important since it gives an aspect of Dasgupta’s philosophy of making the Indian cinema popular in the Western festival circuits as he rightly laments – “Biggest problem with Indian cinema is that it has never become a brand like Chinese cinema, Iranian cinema or lately Korean cinema. Indians were never been able to brand their films like them. Independent makers like Ray, Ghatak they attracted the audience”.
Dasgupta’s own philosophy on life and art which is replicated in the interviews also makes an engaging read in his own essays viz. ‘Enduring Images’ and ‘The world is our stage’. The ‘Critique’ section is pithy – Dhruba Gupta’s take on Grihayuddha, Gaston Roberge’s on Uttara and Amit Agarwal’s parallel between Neem Annapurna and Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali deserve special mention.
This is a book which is produced by the Films Division – the supposed nurturer of ‘good’ cinema in India. That they have taken pain to bring out this book deserves applause. However, the collection is based on originally published articles elsewhere – so the pain if any in bringing out this collection is in gathering the articles from different sources. The editorial team could have given notice in making the production of International standards. There are no stills from the different films, the Dossier is incomplete with respect to the details of the films (only the names and year cease to be enough in today’s information-intensive world) which Dasgupta has made, the quality of printing and the quality of paper all deserve a hike and not the least the shape and the size of the book on a ‘different’ film-maker is too clichéd. The collection could have been a product that can be marketed to the world – a book on a film director whom the editor feels dons world standards. Keeping the price of the book low at 150 INR/5 USD and then catering a sub-standard production belittles the cause. This is probably not just a minor blemish but reflects the vision of the producers of the book, who unfortunately don’t hold the same ‘poetic’ vision of the subject they dealt with here.

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