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The
role of the documentary has gone way beyond the ‘social’ since
the days of Grierson and Rotha, the earliest promoters and
intellectuals of this genre. Contemporary documentary is now as
wide ranging as any of the individuals who make these films: from
personal accounts of one’s sexuality like Nishit Saran’s Summer
in my Veins to the ‘agit-prop’ political polemics of Anand
Patwardhan; and in almost any form: documentaries now frequently
use dramatisation with actors to tell a story, sometimes even
animation.
Until
very recently, we in India and the rest of South Asia had not been
blessed with much possibility for experimentation in the
documentary. But inexpensive digital technology has completely
revolutionised the scene in the last three years or so. A new
documentary movement of sorts is being attempted, at the forefront
of which are three organisations – Public Service Broadcasting
Trust (PSBT), with Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal and Adoor
Gopalakrishnan on their board, commissions documentaries for
telecast on Doordarshan; HIMAL, based in Kathmandu, holds
travelling documentary festivals for filmmakers from South Asia;
Shekhar Kapur’s brainchild, Digital Talkies, has been promoting
the small-budget film with bold and innovative themes.
In
August, PSBT and HIMAL organised separate film festivals in Delhi,
showing nearly 60 films, and thus offered a good opportunity to
examine the trends in documentary and the concerns of the
filmmakers of the South Asia region. The PSBT festival focussed
mostly on their own 40-odd productions, the theme for which was
the personal concerns of the filmmakers from India. The
commissioning brief had declared that these films will “explore
contemporary predicaments and opportunities that privileged and
middle class individuals, families and communities confront from
the accelerating processes of change.” Documentarists have
traditionally been obsessed with social problems of others,
and one was looking forward to refreshing introspections of the
middle class looking at itself.
Surprisingly,
this call resulted in nothing on alternate sexuality, on the
vulgar and widening inequities in society, on the threat of a war,
on the brutalisation of our society, or on the sham criminal
justice system – nothing really on the burning issues of our
times. Instead, we had a film on the Mumbai taxi drivers which
ridiculed them (Oye Taxi, directed by Karan Singh). It left
the (middle class) audience feeling good about itself, laughing at
the antics of the drivers as they revealed their secret desire to
be film stars. We had another which poked fun at those offering
alternative healing (Dharma Dollies, by Aruna Har Prasad).
There
was no dearth of hackneyed subjects, perhaps inspired by weekend
supplements of English dailies: Into the Abyss by Vandana
Kohli on the growing incidence of depression; On My Own by
A Srinavasan on single women living in Delhi. Middle Class
Rebellion, mind you, is not the title of a chapter from
your school textbook, but of a film which describes itself as ‘a
case study of tradition and modernity in urban middle class
marriages’! A film on ‘the encroachment of technology into our
lives’ is called The Technological Encroachment!
Despite
the fact that each of these films at the PSBT fest is generously
funded (by Ford Foundation) their conceptual and editorial focus
and production values were at the level of television news. It was
hoped that this initiative would result in a new breed of
committed filmmakers, instead it seems everyone is only making a
fast buck. Which is unfortunate, as a documentary is, in some
ways, actuality at its most intense and yet reflective. Without
the rush hour feel of the news brigade, without the sensations of
a deadline, no loss of the detail, it offers an opportunity for a
more contemplative look at the world we inhabit and the processes
that are shaping it.
The
redeeming feature of the PSBT fest was the screening of a few
stimulating documentaries from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Afro@digital
by Balufu Bakupa Kanyinda was a look at the invasion of
digital technologies into our lives. A notable feature of the
foreign films was that they were mostly dramatised – thus they
were not only stretching the boundaries of the genre, but also
using the most innovative formal devices to represent actuality. Trois
fables a l’usage des Blancs were a set of three short
‘fables’ which used humour to make telling comments on the
relationship of the white tourists (including one foreign
documentary crew!) with the rural folk in the interiors of Africa.
While
funding is helpful and the attempt to create a new movement in
India by PSBT is extremely laudable, what is missing is the
quality of the response – the boldness to ask what Alan
Rosenthal called “hard, often disturbing, questions pertinent to
our age. If documentary can do that, it can move confidently into
the future.”
Like
Sameera Jain’s Born at Home, part of the HIMAL festival.
The film revealed to the urban audiences the slow but steady
decline of the status of dais who have traditionally
handled childbirth at home. It focussed on the warmth and
understanding between the mother and the midwife, and on her
special knowledge and skills. The film makes no direct attack on
the impersonal and exploitative modern system of ‘delivering’
babies at nursing homes, which is replacing the traditional one.
But, as the discussion after the film demonstrated, the audience
was quick to compare the two systems and seemed convinced that
traditional skills need to be saved and revived.
The
HIMAL festival, which had the advantage of offering fare which had
no telecast deadlines, featured films made over the last two years
by independent film makers from South Asia. It had many films
which have already won acclaim: King of Dreams by Amar
Kanwar, Between the Devil and the Deep River by Arvind
Sinha. But it were the experimental silent shorts which stood out
in the crowd: Sikander Mufti’s Voice Vendor uses classic
silent-film devices to tell a story: “A world where voices are
sold in bottles…and then there is the wrong bottle”. The
five-minute film takes you on a journey of self-discovery, from
discord to disillusionment to betrayal and finally unity and
harmony. A contemporary masterpiece.
The
other notable film was We Homes Chaps. Dr Graham’s Homes
in Kalimpong, a school set up by a Scottish visionary for
destitute children, hosts a get together of old students who are
re-visiting the school after more than 20 years. The children, now
much older and all quite established, visit the spaces they once
inhabited, as they recall incidents from their lives in this
school. Painful and pleasant memories, long buried, unfold in
front of the camera. Made by an ex-student who is also revisiting
the school for the first time, Kesang Tseten, here is an example
of a film that, though indifferently edited and poorly structured,
still touched a chord with the audience because it was made with
personal conviction, passion and commitment. Ultimately, we have
to look at the function of a documentary. If a film like We
Homes Chaps leaves you disturbed, and gets you thinking then
it has achieved its purpose.
At
this point in time, being an Indian and making documentaries is
full of exciting possibilities. Here is a society in
metamorphoses, replete with contradictions and conflict, where
globalisation is making rapid invasions into our very hearts, even
as the resistance to it gains momentum. The country is changing so
rapidly, that if one were to write the history of these times, it
must be recorded in pictures. For a filmmaker or writer or poet or
painter, anyone who has the power to observe and understand, there
are incredible stories waiting to be discovered.
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