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.
No comments:
Post a Comment