Jun 19, 2012

24th June 2012; Ritwik Ghatak's SUBARNAREKHA






SUBARNAREKHA

A film by Ritwik Ghatak
Year :1965
Runtime: 124 minutes
Bengali with English subtitles
24th June 2012; 5.45pm
Perks Mini Theater


Ritwik Ghatak's films are deeply haunted by the specter of the Partition of Bengal in 1947, and this sense of dislocation and self-inflicted human tragedy created by artificially imposed social division casts a pervasive sentiment of despair, instability, and perpetual exile through all the rended families and uprooted ancestral communities of Subarnarekha. Opening to the chaotic image of a pair of young, displaced teachers, Haraprasad (Bijon Bhattacharya) and Ishwar (Abhi Bhattacharya) inaugurating a makeshift village school at a refugee colony that has been established on the grounds of landowner's estate, while a low caste woman, seeking alms nearby, is forcibly separated from her son, Abhiram (Sriman Tarun) when she is rounded up into a truck and summarily ethnically cleansed from the colony by the landowner's hired thugs under the guise of religious orthodoxy enforcing caste segregation, the turbulent - and ultimately irrevocable - separation between mother and child serves as a potent metaphor for the trauma of the Partition itself, as Bengal is torn apart by religious and social sectarianism in the aftermath of the country's independence from the British. 
Ghatak illustrates the integrality of history to the interconnected destinies of Ishwar's communal family, initially, through the collapsed hope for reunification embodied in the idealistic Haraprasad's coincidental lament upon reading the news of Mahatma Gandhi's death - "Hey Ram!" (Oh, God!) - the exclamation commonly believed to be Gandhi's own last words upon his assassination, and subsequently, in Ishwar's conversation with his college friend, Rambilas (Pitambar), a wealthy businessman who inherited a foundry from his late father, as Ishwar comments on his dramatic change in fortunes from privileged student to orphan and caretaker of his younger sister Sita (Indrani Chakrabarty) after only six intervening years by reinforcing the contextual timeframe as 1942 through 1948, a profoundly critical period (with particularly great consequences for Bengal) that marked the birth of the 'Quit India' movement (1942), the Bengal Famine (1943) directly caused by the escalation of the Pacific War, national independence (1947), the Partition (1947), and the assassination of Gandhi (1948).
Similarly, the Subarnarekha River (translated as the "Golden Line" River because of its proximity to rich ore deposits) becomes an implicit reflection of the inescapable social (and economic) disparity and cultural marginalization that continues to afflict the displaced refugees of the Partition, as Ishwar, seeking to find a new home and a better life for his young sister, accepts Rambilas' offer to work at the foundry in exchange for a small wage and company-furnished housing on the other side of the eponymous river. 
Leaving the colony - and in essence, abandoning the dream of reunification - with Sita and Abhiram, for whom he had assumed guardianship until his mother is located, Ishwar invariably settles into a life of middle-class comfortability when he is subsequently promoted as manager and given a minority stake in the company. 
But Ishwar's financial stability also betrays a passivity to the profound changes occurring within his own home, an indifference that is reflected in Ishwar's filial criticisms over the melancholy expressed by a now grown Sita (Madhabi Mukherjee) through her sorrowful ballads, and university student Abhiram (Satindra Bhattacharya) through his unpublished manuscripts that reveal a deeply harbored (and overtly autobiographical) longing to reconnect with a lost mother and an adrift sense of place, as well as through their increasingly inescapable affection towards each other. 
It is this pervasive complacency (if not outright willful ignorance) that inevitably lies at the core of Ghatak's impassioned social criticism on the fateful dynamics that led to the culturally self-inflicted tragedy of the Partition - an inextricable pattern of self-interest, insensitivity, and political apathy from the Bengali middle-class that not only enabled ideological fanaticism and sectarianism to shape the landscape of a post-colonial Indian nation, but also rendered the very idea of home as a sentimental place on an elusive other side that, like the distant, opposing banks of the Subarnarekha River, symbolically represents an idealized, and intranscendible, elsewhere.
(Courtesy: http://www.filmref.com )



RITWIK GHATAK
1925 – 1976

Ritwik Ghatak was born in Dhaka in East Bengal (now Bangladesh). He belonged to an illustrious family. His father Suresh Chandra Ghatak was a district magistrate and also a poet and playwright, mother's name was Indubala Devi. He and his family moved to Kolkata just before millions of other refugees from East Bengal began to flood into the city, fleeing the catastrophic 1943 famine and the Partition of India in 1947. Identification with this tide of refugees was to define his practice, providing an overriding metaphor for cultural dismemberment and exile that unified his subsequent creative work.

In 1948, Ghatak wrote his first play Kalo sayar (The Dark Lake), and participated in a revival of the landmark play Nabanna. In 1951, Ghatak joined the Indian People's Theatre Association ( IPTA ). He wrote, directed and acted in plays and translated Bertolt Brecht and Gogol into Bengali. In 1957, he wrote and directed his last play Jwala (The Burning).
Ghatak entered film industry with Nemai Ghosh's Chinnamul (1950) as actor and assistant director. Chinnamul was followed two years later by Ghatak's first completed film Nagarik (1952), both major break-throughs for the Indian cinema. Ritwik Ghatak directed eight full-length films. Ghatak moved briefly to Pune in 1966, where he taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and John Abraham, Kumar Shahani and Mani Kaul were among  his students .

Ritwik Ghatak Filmography:
Nagarik (The Citizen-1952)
Ajantrik (Pathetic Fallacy-1958)
Bari Theke Paliye (Runaway-1959)
Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud Capped Star-1961)
Komal Gandhar (1961)
Subarnarekha (The Golden Line-1962)
Titas Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Named Titas-1973)
Jukti Takko aar gappo (Arguments and a Story-1974)


Jun 11, 2012

17th June 2012; Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God




Aguirre, the Wrath of God
A film by Werner Herzog
Year:1973
Country: Peru
German with English subtitles
Runtime:95 minutes
17th June 2012; 5.45 pm
Perks Mini Theater



On this river God never finished his creation.

The captured Indian speaks solemnly to the last remnants of a Spanish expedition seeking the fabled El Dorado, the city of gold. A padre hands him a Bible, “the word of God.'' He holds it to his ear but can hear nothing. Around his neck hangs a golden bauble. The Spanish rip it from him and hold it before their eyes, mesmerized by the hope that now, finally, at last, El Dorado must be at hand. “Where is the city?'' they cry at the Indian, using their slave as an interpreter. He waves his hand vaguely at the river. It is further. Always further.



Werner Herzog's “Aguirre, the Wrath of God''  is one of the great haunting visions of the cinema. To watch "Aguirre: Wrath of God" is to encounter one of those rare films that sits with you long after you've finished watching it. The powerful and near demonic screen presence of Klaus Kinski, combined with the very real danger of the nature that surrounds him and Herzog's gift for making every shot count, is quite remarkable.

Kinski is Aguirre and it is hard to imagine better casting. He is part of an expedition of conquistadors, sent to find the fabled El Dorado, the city of gold. When the going becomes too tough for the leader Ursua, he overthrows him and leads his men on an odyssey to hell. His rousing call that "Fortune smiles on the brave and spits on the coward" is the last comfort that he can offer as the uncharted jungle territory claims its victims.
 Much of the adventure takes place on rafts as Kinski urges and pummels his men to their destiny. The Peruvian river settings are in truth deadly dangerous, and Herzog expertly captures the immense power of nature against man. It is to Kinski's credit then that he is able to produce a performance of such invincible intensity. And while he stands firm, the madness around him grows as the other men are picked off one by one by the seemingly invisible Indians that hide on the jungle banks.

 Despite the haunting and hypnotic power of the film, it runs at only 95 minutes. Herzog doesn't indulge himself despite the tempting locations and cast. The pace is fast and the destructive and ominous theme of power confused with madness, strong and powerful. But while it is over quite quickly, the film sits with you far beyond the running time. 
-          From Roger Ebert and BBC reviews 







Werner Herzog

One of the most influential filmmakers in German Cinema and one of the most extreme personalities in film per se, larger-than-life Werner Herzog quickly gained recognition not only for creating some of the most fantastic narratives in the history of the medium, but for pushing himself and his crew to absurd and unprecedented lengths, again and again, in order to achieve the effects he demanded.

Werner Herzog (Werner Stipetic) was born Sept. 5, 1942 in Munich. He grew up on a farm in the Bavarian mountains. After his parents' divorce, Herzog and his mother moved to Munich where he attended High School (graduated in 1961). He travelled through Jugoslavia and Greece, worked in Manchester and - fact or fiction? - as a rodeo rider.

In 1974, he walked from Munich to Paris to see the sick Lotte Eisner. He wrote a dairy about his pilgrimage entitled Vom Gehen im Eis (Walking on Ice) for which he received a literary award (Rausirer Literaturpreis) in 1979. He said that when he was 14 years old, he knew that he would be making films. His first short was completed in 1962 (Herakles) and one year later he founded his own production company.

Herzog studied history, literature and drama in Munich and Pittsburgh (Fulbright) but not for very long. He never attended a film school and had no formal film education. 1964 he won the Carl Mayer Prize for the screenplay that was to become his first feature film, Signs of Life (Lebenszeichen), which was financed by the Kuratorium Junger Deutscher Film (300.000DM) and won the Bundesfilmpreis for best first feature.

Among Herzog's most popular films, though not an immediate success, was Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972) with Klaus Kinski, who also starred in Nosferatu (1979),Woyzeck (1979), Fitzcarraldo (1982), and Cobra Verde (1987). One of his biggest successes was Every Man for Himself and God Against All / The Mystery (Enigma) of Kaspar Hauser (1974), which won the Special Award in Cannes (1975) and several Federal Film Prizes (1975).
Herzog is famous for dealing with marginalized figures and for his choice of 'exotic' sets (Peru, Brazil, Australia). Herzog, the "visionary" of the NGC, insists that "film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates."

In recent years, Herzog released a number of documentaries and directed various operas. His latest feature film is Invincible. He lives in Munich and Los Angeles.



Jun 7, 2012

9th June 2012;Art Documentary:The Day Pictures Were Born


Contemplate & Konangal

Art Documentary screening


The Day Pictures Were Born

Episode Two of BBC’s How Art Made the World

Runtime:59 minutes

9th June 2012; 5.45pm 

Contemplate Art Gallery

 There are two big questions in this second episode of the BBC’s acclaimed art series ‘How Art made the World’. One is why homo sapiens, who have been around for over 150,000 years, only began creating representational art about 35,000 years ago.
 The debates among biologists, evolutionary linguists, paleo-anthropologists, etc., wage on about what has been called “The Great Leap Forward,” or in Dr. Spivey’s words, “The Creative Explosion”, which includes the development of language (around 50,000 years ago). That question is left a mystery, and the second big question is, what do these 35,000 year old paintings mean and why did humans start making them? 
 The episode leads us through the discovery of Altamira and Lascaux and then through several theories regarding the origins of cave painting. The most famous of these proposed that they were hunting rituals preceding the hunt; problematically, people around the world seemed to eat different animals than they painted.

Using anthropology from South Africa and the San people, Spivey and a couple experts theorize, rather plausibly given their evidence, that these early cave paintings were part of solitary shamanistic rituals, and very likely were produced after trance states. A neurologist at London’s Institute of Psychiatry demonstrates a really cool machine that produces trance-like responses in the brain through the visual cortex, and show that our brains are hardwired to receive certain kinds of geometric patterns and that trance states actually turn those into hyper drive. 


Spivey hypothesizes that for this reason, different cultures around the world had trance-visions of different objects and animals. Scientists who study altered states of consciousness suggest the answer lies in the hard-wiring of the brain. People didn't just one day decide to invent making pictures. Rather, prehistoric artists where experiencing sensory deprivation deep within their caves—in a sort of trance state—resulting in powerful hallucinations. These hallucinations were of such powerful emotional importance they felt compelled to paint them on the walls. According to this theory, these artists were simply nailing down their visions.