A Little Tale From Kashmir (a story from The Indian Express)

Muzamil Jaleel, a writer whose reportage of Kashmir I have often admired in The Indian Express, for which he writes, has filed this sad, sad, sad story today in the same paper. Two lines that I'd like to highlight are: "the group Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) say 10,000 men have disappeared since a counter-insurgent assault began in the Valley in 1990. Though the government disagrees with the APDP statistics, it has promised an inquiry several times but nothing has come of it." 

And yet, it is the same country where 80,000 Tibetans found refuge as they fled Tibet.

‘My Nazir, have you come, she said... and closed her eyes’

When the mothers of the Valley’s missing gather for their monthly mourning assembly this time, they will also be mourning a mother, who died waiting for her son to come back. Mughli — the elderly mother whose relentless fight to trace her only son had become the epitome of the struggle of the parents of disappeared in Kashmir — died on Sunday without closure.

“Maine Nazira, aave kha (My Nazir, have you come), she said and closed her eyes,” said Parveena Ahangar, the president of the mothers’ union. “For the last 19 years, she had been craving to see her son, to know of his fate. She was always full of hope.” Ahangar said Mughli’s death was especially tragic for the group. “We feel that we will die one by one, looking for our children,” she said. “Over the years, we had developed such a strong attachment with each other. This bond of mutual pain and hope has turned us into a large family. Now we are losing hope.”

Mughli’s son — Nazir Ahmad Teli — was a school teacher, who disappeared in 1990 after he was picked up by security forces, never to return. For years, Mughli lived alone in her large family house deep inside Srinagar’s Habba Kadal where narrow streets snake through a cluster of housing blocks. Old age had turned her nearly deaf but the hope that her son may return saw her spending days at the window, looking out at the door. Today, the rusty chain link that would shut the mite-eaten door of her house is locked.

One morning — she once told this correspondent — in the first September of the first tehreek (militant struggle in 1990) her teacher son Nazir Ahmad Teli left for school. She never saw him again — and Mughli became one of the first members of a tragic club of several thousand women whose young sons or husbands have disappeared, the majority of them picked up by police or security forces. Bound together by mutual pain and a shared tale, the group Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) say 10,000 men have disappeared since a counter-insurgent assault began in the Valley in 1990. Though the government disagrees with the APDP statistics, it has promised an inquiry several times but nothing has come of it.

In an interview to The Indian Express while she was still able to move around, Mughli — who didn’t remember her age — had said that the shock broke her back. “He was born after my husband divorced me. I had no one. I didn’t marry again and raised him. He was the only reason for my life,” she had said. “He had never stayed away from home — not even for a single night. Each day he would return from school and give me a hug. I am still waiting. I wish to hug him once. If they tell me he is dead, I would hug his grave. I don’t know what happened to him and this pain, this uncertainty is unbearable.”

She then took off her thick glasses and wiped her tears with the corner of her shawl. “Every time I tell this story I feel as if I rind my wounds — as if a sharp knife is dipped in my wound again,” she had said. “These walls are my only companion and they don’t ask anything.” She wailed in murmurs, her words inaudible. Where did you search for him? “I waited and waited for him that evening. When the sun went down and it was dark, I knew something was wrong. He would always come straight home after his work,” she had recalled. “I felt my heart sink and called my neighbours. They came and tried to console me till late in the night. I spent that night sitting at the window looking at the door. He didn’t return.”

Mughli had approached police officers and politicians and even visited every jail in Kashmir hoping to find her son. But nothing helped. The APDP had helped her file a petition in the court which is still going on. Mughli, meanwhile, had taken refuge in faith and every Thursday, she would visit the shrines in the city, seeking divine help.

Mughli had never opened her son’s room ever since he went missing and had even tried to commit suicide. She had said that her son comes in her dreams. “He (her son) calls me in the dream. He tells me he is alive,” she had said.

Over the years, the APDP has been reduced to a forum for group catharsis — where the families of the disappeared meet, share their stories and help each other cope. With her death, one story of pain has come to a sudden end. But it has also left a gaping wound. The mothers of Kashmir’s missing need closure and only the government can ensure that. And if Chief minister Omar Abdullah turns the poll promise of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission into a reality, there will be some hope of that.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

It is customary on birth and death anniversaries of great men, to remember them. Here is an attempt to remember what inspired the greatness in that man. For a man is but his beliefs, ideals, principles, faiths and convictions.

Mahatma Gandhi, whose relevance to the world today keep increasing by the day (contrary to what most believe of this man and his thought and revel in painting him either as a hero to be worshipped or a villain to be whipped without ever getting to know what he said or did), did not become what he became overnight. He was inspired by the life and works of many great men before him. The most important were the literature of Leo Tolstoy (his later works as a seer), Ralph Waldo Emerson and most specifically, Henry David Thoreau.

It was one simple essay written by H D Thoreau that inspired Gandhi to launch a silent attack on an empire, rather a system of subjugation, whose result, this so called freedom, we so conveniently enjoy for our pleasurable pursuits. This essay was called, 'Civil Disobedience'.

H D Thoreau was a seer, for the simple reason that his writings, especially this essay, has not lost its power. Indeed, it has gained more power and relevance in a world where individual freedom is blindly being sacrificed for a weird notion of collective security. And while for Gandhi, and India then, the 'enemy' was visible to the naked eye, he had white skin, and was British (prejudiced, yes, for many whites did do greater things for India then, then most Indians do even today) and his sole purpose was capitalistic interest, it is not so today. Though the notion of capitalistic interest remain. We are being plunged into a slavery a subjugation of the mind right before our eyes by giant corporations ruled by men whose only interest is them and their kin, and politicians who tow their lines for the same reason, and us - whom they have brought over to their side by materialistic toys, most of which we can easily live without, as so easily demonstrated by Mahatma Gandhi, and of course, Thoreau (read 'Walden', another of Gandhi's favourite).

Today governments across the world, especially those that are more materialistic and capitalistic than ours e.g. North America and Europe, are run by men and women with no interest or even patience to really work for the good of their people, but who borrow clichés common with the masses and use it for their own selfish interests. Some of those clichés are industry, education, luxury, security, terrorism, religion, capital increase, employment generation etc.

For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, read this essay and try to see what is happening around you. Go beyond the clichés in your own head and you'll probably see that the fight for true independence the world over has only just begun. Mahatma Gandhi was one of the rare breed of men in this world, who fought not just for freedom, but true independence of the human mind and spirit, where - like Tagore said - 'The mind is without fear, and the head is held high...'

This essay, though many would consider it impractical today, is still the first touch that drives men and women across the world, to become activists, lovers of justice and simply someone who merely wants to better the world they have inherited.

You can read the essay by simply typing 'Thoreau Civil Disobedience' on Google. I will however, present a few excerpts. Or you can click here.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.

I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the wind away," but leave that office to his dust at least:

"I am too high born to be propertied,
                To be a second at control,
                Or useful serving-man and instrument
                To any sovereign state throughout the world."

The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. (Think NAZI Germany)

Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divided States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.  

Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. (Think Dr. Binayak Sen)

"If a state is governed by the principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of shame

Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law than I.

I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man a musket to shoot one with--the dollar is innocent--but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get what advantages of her I can, as is usual in such cases.

No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire.

I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which I have also imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.

THE LAST COMBAT OF LUC BESSON

It is too soon to write Luc Besson off.

Cinema, as goes the cliché, is a visual medium. Yet few masters have achieved cinematic nirvana of making a film with the least dialogues (ideally dreaming of none). For a first time director to even aspire to do that, takes courage. For him to succeed and hold the audience's attention for an hour and a half without one word uttered and the bare minimum music, takes tremendous skill. If you see Luc Besson's 'The Last Combat' (TLC) (made when he was all of 24), you'll realize with delight that he does not lack either.

 

A 24 year Luc Besson broke through the barriers to make perhaps his best film ever, 'The Last Combat'.

Yet in the rooster of World Cinema greats, you will rarely find this films mention. The problem lies in the basic premise and setting, which it borrows from 'Mad Max 2' (The Road Warrior). And though there are similarities, the lawless post-apocalyptic world, the glider, the barren desert landscape, 'The Last Combat' pushes filmmaking into horizons least explored previously, or hence. While Mad Max 2 exults in grand landscapes and panoramic shots, TLC's world is a closed space, a city with broken buildings and a ruthless villain. Thankfully, this overlooked masterpiece by critics, has been rescued by audiences and has acquired cult status.

In the underbelly of human civilization, its subway.

Besson's love of closed spaces brings us to his next, 'Subway'. This time he gets into the underbelly of civilisation, its subway, and brings together characters that live in the fringes of society diving deep down into their world. A thief on the run with documents after breaking into the safe of a rich man, takes refuge with weird characters that inhabit the subway in this bizzare comic caper where he falls in love with the rich man's wife.

In 'Le Grand Blue' he is “falling without slipping” as a character describes diving, yet this film about deep sea divers, does not live up to the promise of its predecessors, perhaps because the subject was too close to his heart (his parents were scuba diving instructors; but for an accident at age 18, he'd have become a marine biologist) for him to film objectively.

A trigger-happy, beautiful woman with a license to kill, what else could scintillate a man's fantasy more. Yet, 'Nikita' is much more.

He corrects this mistake in 'Nikita', which brings back his mad-cap flair for stylistic violence. A convict sentenced to death is kept alive and trained for three years to be a government assassin. Though Besson opens up in the film, roaming the streets of Paris and Venice freely, his confinement this time is the mind and mixed emotions of his femme fatale. The film became a sensation, resulting in a hit American TV series (which he wrote) and more importantly, opening up his doors to America aka Hollywood.

His first American film 'Leon', besides some stunning cinematography of violence, is a study of a strange relationship between a hitman (played by his regular Jean Reno) and a 12 year old girl (Mathilda, played by 11 year old Natalie Portman) he has rescued. The girl wants to become a hitman like him out of vengeance. Their relation is absurd and uneasy as on one side it is paternal, and on the other side the under-aged girl professes her love for the cold-blooded, calculative, yet slightly retarded hitman. The landscape is New York, the man behind directing the camera, unmistakably Besson.

This time the female fatale is again a woman, only a much younger one. Natalie Portman aged 11.

Ironically, 'Leon', meant to be a filler to utilize his team because the shooting of 'The Fifth Element' was delayed due to unavailability of dates from Bruce Wills, is today more popular than the later, which is often seen as the beginning of the decline of Besson. Hollywood had taken a liking for this French stylist (many like Tarantino borrow elements from his absurdist violence and its corresponding style), and perhaps this adulation did not do him good. Aside some grand visions of the future (flying cars, spaceship as hotel etc.), 'The Fifth Element' lacked the depth of character and story that were a hallmark of his previous films. The pleasurable confinement of enclosed spaces (physically and of the mind) had given way to some blank open spaces and spectacular special effects.

Scream all you want, but all effects and no substance... do not a good film make. 'The Fifth Element' began the decline of Besson.

The rest of his career, both in Hollywood and France, with the exception of 'Angel-A' so far has been given way to too much style and action (the Transporter series) and mindless comedy (the 'Taxi' series), than the substance of his earlier films.

Besson's main theme, in almost all his previous stories, is the individual. He is not interested in the grand plot, or the grand sweep surrounding the main characters. All that he is interested in are the protagonists, usually one, two, or three and he paints their portrait like a painter paints his masterpieces, delicately and intimately. It is as if his voyeuristic camera is making intimate love to their characters.

He has hence been a disappointment to his true fans. Considered a pivotal figure in the Cinéma du look movement, a specific style of film being made in the '80s and early 1990s- Luc Besson's commercial success, cult following and critical controversies – has seen his films being positioned at two extremes by critics: on one hand: générationnel, a defining moment in the culture and on the other hand: Hollywood trash. Yet, at age 50, it is too early to write him off as the latter. Indeed, the last combat of Besson, may have just begun.

Alien Story

Review of ‘District 9’ with comments on 'alien' issues it raises and hopes that the film will usher in a new era of filmmaking for Hollywood.

Who is an Alien? In one word - an outsider or the minority. It could be a religious minority, or the ones with a different idea or way of life, culture, or even mindset. Yet, connecting all sorts of alien with a common theme is that even they - no matter the type - live, breathe and feel like the rest of us. And this should be the basis of a humane, compassionate coexistence sans prejudice. This is the basis of Neill Blomkamp’s film ‘District 9’.

There's always something that the majority find fascinating in the minority. In 'District 9', it's technology. In real life, it's either cheap labour, propensity to a certain type of work etc.

The film, of course, takes the literal meaning of the word ‘Alien’ but the issues it raises, are very much a part of every nook and corner of spaceship earth.

A spaceship of alien suddenly floats above Johannesburg, South Africa in the 1980s and just hangs there for three months. When humans finally break into it, they find a million ‘prawn’ looking aliens, malnutritioned and dying on the ship. Humanity gives them shelter and a ghetto - ‘District 9’ - is formed. Yet, these aliens, who look and speak different from humans, are never accepted amidst the human race and a multinational corporation, cheekily and boldly called Multinational United, wants to harness the amazingly advanced weapons technology of these aliens for their own profit.

'District 9' for India would be Kashmir. For USA, after eliminating the original 'District 9' residents, the Red Indians, today it still is every corner of the country where blacks reside. For the world it is an entire continent of Africa - no one cares about the people who reside in the place where humanity originated, but everyone, including India (Indian corporations own millions of hectares of farmlands in Africa, even as they systematically and brutally convert Indian farmlands into industrial wastelands) is interested in what they have to offer.

The story is familiar. The alien race can be looked upon as the Negroes in America who have been ‘used’ by the nation but never fully accepted. Or they can be the Jews in Nazi Germany. Or they can be Muslims in India; or Indians in UK or Australia. All of these connected by one simple basic fact - each is useful to their community, but being in a minority are targeted by the dominant race of the region and never fully understood just because their looks, customs or cultures are different.

Whose responsibility is it then, to try and understand? Should the ‘aliens’ make themselves understood? If yes, then how? You can’t talk to closed minds. Or should the majority try and understand. That is more feasible. Perhaps, the answer is that both should make an attempt. Yet, the easy way taken by the majority in any race or culture, is of neglecting and even targeting ‘aliens’ and blaming them for the problems that beset them. Laziness is perhaps a quintessential human quality.

Hence, Wikus, one of the top managers in MNU, who is given the responsibility to evict the aliens from their ghetto into a settlement away from the city, looks gleeful while unplugging the nutrition supply nesting a swarm of alien babies, thus killing them. He does not see the ‘human’ side of these creatures but looks at them just as a nuisance that have to be curbed and segregated. Yet, his world takes a u-turn when he is accidentally exposed to a liquid from a secret instrument one of the aliens had been building and without his knowing begins turning into an alien himself.

Wickus talks concepts of ownership with a race that does not, unlike dumb humans, know the concept.

To his own company, MNU, he now becomes both a threat and an asset. Asset because MNU has had a huge cache of alien advanced weapons, but are unable to harness them as they are hard coded with alien DNA i.e. only an alien could use them. When Wikus, as part alien, is able to use the weapon, he becomes a multibillion dollar commodity, the most precious man (alien) on earth and everyone wants a pie of him, including a Nigerian militia whose intention is similar to MNUs, to become like the aliens and use the weapons. After Wikus escapes, he is hunted and with his images broadcast across the world; he is left with no friends. In a twist of fate, he retreats to the only place he knows MNU will not come looking for him, District 9.

When the doctor gets to taste his own medicine, he discovers 'humanity'.

Here, he finds an unusual ally in Christopher, the alien he had met the previous day, and exposure to whose instrument altered his own DNA. The two become unlikely partners with different goals, Christopher’s to be able to connect with his mother ship and fly back to his own planet and Wikus to reverse the DNA change and turn human again. Ironically, it is only by turning alien that Wikus becomes human in the true sense and meaning of the word. In the end his transformation to the true side of ‘humanity’ is complete as he is willing to sacrifice himself to save the alien.

The film sounds like a typical Hollywood film. Indeed, in many ways, it is. Yet, with its documentary style of narrative, it pushes Hollywood filmmaking into uncharted territories, explored only by World Cinema before and left untouched by a scared Hollywood despite the commendable success of ‘Blair Witch Project’ and other attempts like ‘Cloverfield’. Had the analogy of the aliens been replaced by say a different race of humans, like the blacks in America, it would have seemed like an entirely true documentary with candid moments, shaky camera, out of focus shots et al. And this is where the film scores a triumph - in not giving this film a ‘sanitised’ look like other sci-fi films like ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Matrix’. Instead, the focus is the humanity or the lack of it in humans.

Gregory Peck, plays a reporter who goes undercover posing as a Jew, even when he is not, only to discover the sickening depth to which anti-Semitism runs, in Elia Kazan's Oscar winning masterpiece 'Gentleman's Agreement'. In India, it's still not very different with Muslims being denied basic fundamental rights just because of their religion. But, of course, like in 'Gentleman's Agreement' it is all very conveniently tacit.

The analogies in the film are too obvious for the comfort of any discerning world cinema lover. The landing of the spaceship in South Africa is an obvious statement against the apartheid and segregation of the blacks there. Also, how direct can a filmmaker be in making a statement against capitalism than calling the evil corporation ‘Multinational’ United? The film drives home the point against both racial conflict and capitalism like only Hollywood - the strongest surviving film industry in the world, can. And for the lovers of the perfectly shot and sanitary Hollywood films, it more than manages to create a film that is much more engaging, gritty and real, yet surpassing reality, than any recent film.

‘District 9’ is also a treat for lovers of cool CGI. Yet, the best part about the special effects is that first it is not the focal point of the film and secondly it treats them as if it were child’s play for the filmmakers to create. It is however obvious that the effects were not easy. For one, the aliens, at least the long shot of the aliens, is complete CGI, obvious because the stomach part of the aliens is so thin that it is impossible to do it in rubber or silicon body masks.

The only drawback to the film, from a puritanical perspective, is that it is conventional in parts, especially its ending, where the story is rounded up, something so essential in Hollywood filmmaking. One can guess that that is a compromise the makers had to make. Watching the film makes one glad that they took the chance.

Indians are targeting Muslims, tribals, Kashmiris, lower caste people in India. Indians are being targeted in Australia and UK. Blacks are targeted in the US. Americans are targeted in Muslim countries. Jews are still targeted in many places. The poor are targeted everywhere. Is everyone a freaking alien in this world?

The film borrows from the tradition of 30’s and 40s Hollywood (and the idea resembles ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’) where filmmakers with a conscience ruled the roost and made films that said something. Here the statement is about the minorities of the world, not necessarily based on the looks. The ‘alien’ in India for instance, could be the farmer community, whose suicide does not even ring a bell to the elite who are completely unaware how intricately their lives are intertwined and dependent on them.

The global success of ‘District 9’ will hopefully take commercial filmmaking into yet uncharted territories and inspire it enough to dig into the world of cinema to find out other potent narrative structures that it can borrow to make engaging and powerful films. One only hopes, the sequel, ‘District 10’ which like the alien is arriving in 3 years, would do so as well.

…And Then There Was World Cinema

Here's a li'l piece I had written for a UTV World Movies E-zine. This is perhaps the shortest, yet the most inclusive possible introduction to the World of Cinema. For those of you who are beginners, its like a beginners guide, for those who know, it will reinstate a few lost ideas. Of course I had to leave out more than I could include, but this is a birds eye view of the major trends, which hopefully will inspire you to dive down, and have a closer, more intimate view. Trust me, you'll enjoy every bit of it...

World Cinema is the latest buzz in town, a term which guarantees instant awe when dropped in conversations. Yet ask anyone to define it, and all you’ll get is a vague generalization about ‘art films’ . “So what about creative commercial cinema?” you wonder.

Ask Wikipedia, and it makes ‘World Cinema’ synonymous with ‘Foreign Language Films’. Does that mean that good films made in one’s home country do not belong to World Cinema? You have a lingering doubt that perhaps the truth about World Cinema lies beyond these.

And it does.

The special effects of this 1902 film 'A Trip To The Moon' by a professional magician Georges Méliès , had audiences tripping inside their heads more than what 'Matrix' did for us in our generation. This movie's available for free from Archive.org.

When the Lumiere brothers first made and demonstrated ‘moving images’ to a Parisian crowd in 1895, they weren’t thinking ‘World Cinema’. Neither were the audiences who thronged town fairs across America and Europe and paid a nickel (hence the term nickelodeons) to watch them. Back then, cinema was merely a novelty.

The four musketeers who founded United Artists in 1919, from left to right: Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin and D.W. Griffith.

It was the vision of one man, D W Griffith, that changed this status quo forever in 1915 with ‘The Birth of a Nation’. Besides pioneering numerous cinematic techniques, he is also the first man to shoot in Hollywood.

Though World War I hampered the growth of cinema in Europe, it did not stay far behind. Hence, while Hollywood had its masters in Charlie Chaplin, Cecil B. DeMille and Buster Keaton, Europe had its own in Fritz Lang, Sergei Eisenstein and F W Murnau. Yet, as the years went by, Hollywood emerged as the cinema capital of the world.

Then the patron saint of cinema breathed sound into moving images in 1927 with the birth of ‘talkies’. Despite the initial chaos, the result was the Golden Age of Hollywood. Directors and actors worked exclusively with studios, and films were made at assembly-line speed. Yet, directors like Frank Capra, John Ford, Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock made it the most creative filmmaking period ever.

Al Johnson was only playing Nostradamus when he walked on screen in the October of 1927 in the film 'The Jazz Singer' and sang out 'Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet...', the first words ever heard from a film, heralding the wave of sound films.

For Europe, World War II brought opportunity in the form of adversity, and a new form – Italian Neorealism – took shape. Filmmakers like Federico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini abandoned the comforts of a studio and took to the streets to shoot films like ‘Bicycle Thieves’ and ‘La Strada’ that inspired the world, including a certain advertising executive in India named Satyajit Ray, to make ‘different’ films.

In France, a breed of critic-turned filmmakers, who were inspired as much by Hollywood as by Italian Neorealism, took up the baton. Directors like Francois Truffaut and Jean Luc Godard changed cinema with landmark films like ‘400 Blows’ and ‘Breathless’, respectively.

Japan, meanwhile was on a unique tangent. One breed of its filmmakers led by Akira Kurosawa was inspired by Hollywood, while others like Yasuziro Ozu and Mikio Naruse developed their own distinctive style.

More than 40% of films made before the 1940s in Japan are lost forever and nothing remains of them but their names. An unspeakable loss to the world of cinema.

Staying with Asia, the intellectual fervor in Iran in the 1950s and 60s led to a new and gritty kind of literature that fuelled its cinema. The result was the Iranian New Wave, a humanistic approach to filmmaking that blended fiction and documentary styles with directors like Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf
and Majid Majidi taking the lead.

Ironically, when good, low-budget films made by the French New Wavers did well in the US, Hollywood was forced into realizing the importance of supporting new talent. The result was the ‘New Hollywood’ of the early 70s, with directors like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg.

India had its own new wave in the 70s as well, with directors like Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen and Adoor Gopalakrishnan making low-budget but intelligent films whose success challenged the stronghold of the so-called ‘commercial cinema’.

The tremendous success of the low budget, but creative film 'Bhuvan Shome' directed by Mrinal Sen, heralded the Indian New Wave in the 70s, perhaps the most creative filmmaking era India has seen.

This brief history of World Cinema thus brings us to its elusive definition, which is actually deceptively simple. Films that have pushed forward the art and craft of filmmaking with its intelligence and creativity can be classified under the omnibus term World Cinema. And while once there was no need for a separate categorization, this has become necessary today due to the formulaic nature of commercial filmmaking across the world.
Yet, works of commercial but creative filmmakers like Capra or Hitchcock find as much place in the roster of World Cinema as those who made films only for art’s sake, such as Tarkovsky (Russia) or Kieslowski (Poland). Awards given at reputed film festivals like Cannes, Berlin, Locarno and Toronto are a good, if only limited, anchor for identifying trends and movements in World Cinema.

World Cinema is inclusive, not exclusive. Hichcock and Capra find as much place here as Tarkovsky and Kieslowski.

Thus, what emerges is an inclusive and even benign class of films and not an obscure and exclusive one as some intellectuals would make us believe. World Cinema, with its good, clean, entertaining, enlightening and provocative appeal, is as much for the ‘masses’ as it is for the ‘classes’. And the world is much the better for it.


(Thanks to Tanmoy Goswami for the wonderful and tight edit.)

To Teacher, With Love

This is a portion of an article paying tribute to teachers this teachers day that appears in DNA Me, September Issue. To read the full article, do buy a copy.

It is said that a student is not a vase to be filled, but a candle to be lit. And though teachers who inspire the love of learning instead of stuffing minds with information are few, almost all of us have been touched by one such special angel of a teacher who has changed the course of our lives. Cinema has often paid rich tributes to these 'miracle workers', who are often more stubborn than their most adamant students. Here are a few depiction in cinema of teachers, who saw more potential in their students than they or their society dared to see in them.

To Sir With Love (1967)

Sir Fighting His Way Into Their Brains And hearts

How do you teach students who have greater problems in life than education - like poverty, hunger and street violence? The answer is, you don't. At least that's what the teachers of this school do, as they are content with running the school in this impoverished part of London just for namesake. When Mark Thackeray, a young black teacher joins, he is told to do the same. Mark does not think much of the school and the rowdy students (who harass him) either. For he is an engineer and this is just a stop-gap, before he lands his big job. Yet, he tries to do a respectable job out of it. When he fails to connect with the students miserably, something snaps inside him. As he gets involved further into the lives of his unwilling students struggling with daily survival, he realises the stupidity of thrusting conventional education at them. What they need, he realises, is life-affirming, practical education. So, he adopts a flexible approach, talking to them about problems that affect them the most. Slowly, but steadily they not only develop an interest in learning, but in bettering their lives and rising from their harsh surroundings. And the same kids who were once up at arms against him (literally as well), now love him (one even has a crush on him). But, he is offered a high paying, respectable engineers job. Will he take it? We all know the answer to that question as the passionate teacher learns a lesson himself - that it is noble to build buildings, but nobler to construct healthy, able minds with the motivation to face life. The film made Sidney Poitier a sensation and the emotional song 'To Sir With Love' by Lulu (who also acts in the film) climbed to No. 1 on the US charts.

The Miracle Worker (1962)

The Master And Her Masterpiece

An unwilling student can be cajoled into learning by talking or listening to him. But what do you do to a girl who is blind, deaf and mute. That is the momentous challenge Annie Sullivan faces as she gets down to teaching Hellen Keller (now famous), a violent and aggressive girl not too keen to learn, frustrated as she is to be imprisoned within herself. But if Hellen is stubborn, her teacher is doubly so. Using unconventional methods, often being very harsh to her while locked in a battle of ego with such a child, she finally manages to instil and inspire the love of knowledge and that is the miracle of the film. Based on the biography of Hellen Keller, the film has been made into numerous plays, but it is this film with two breathtaking, Oscar winning performances that has stayed in the consciousness of the world and inspired countless copies and remakes worldwide, including 'Black' starring Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee which in many parts is a scene by scene copy of the original. However, while 'The Miracle Worker' leaves the audience at the moment of discovery by Helen Keller, 'Black' delves further into the life of the protagonist.

Mr. Holland's Opus (1995)

His students were his greatest composition. One of the best symphony ever.

It is often hard to forget that the practitioners of the noble profession of teaching are human beings with their own personal aspirations. Glenn Holland is one such man who dreams of composing his own magnum opus that would make him famous. He had taken up the job of teaching music to school children as a backup position that would give him time to compose. He had never imagined that his next 3 decades would be spent in classrooms. The film follows him during this period as he comes to terms with the two frustrations in his life, one of being a failure unable to realise his dream and of having a son, who is deaf. However, with his passionate teaching and by introducing the magic of music into the hearts of his students, he has affected their lives in more ways than he can understand. In the end though he realises that he has not been a failure and that his magnum opus is the inspiration and joy he has brought to the lives of his students, that their better life is the greatest composition he could have ever composed. Richard Dreyfuss as Mr. Holland was nominated for an Oscar in this film that tells the story from the perspective of a teacher, telling us that life is often what happens when we are busy making other plans and that its greatest rewards come at the most unexpected moments.

Dead Poet's Society (1989)

Stand Up Against Conformity - He Taught And They Imbibed

Conformity to tradition is often the chain used to stifle creativity. Respect for customs is necessary for students, but not at the cost of inspiration. This, John Keating (Robin Williams), the new English teacher in a conservative and aristocratic boys school understands and using literature and poetry dares his students to change their lives of conformity. Though initially reluctant, the students one by one, experience their moments of epiphany and self realisation. However the self-actualisation of their potential causes an uproar as it threatens to uproot the established tradition of the school and the families to which the students belong. This creates a war between Keating on one side and the authorities on another and when a student who was forced away from his passion by his parents, commits suicide, blame is put on Keating who is expelled. He goes, but not before getting the greatest reward – the satisfaction of knowing that the lessons of life he imparted to his students, had been learnt. A loose adaptation of this Oscar winning film in Bollywood was the hit 'Mohabattein' starring Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan which reduces this beautiful film into a juvenile love story.

Stand And Deliver (1988)

"A Negative Times A Negative Equals A Positive'' - Mathematic Can Inspire

Mathematics is not a subject particularly liked by most. That it can be used to change the lives of volatile kids and inspire them, would sound like a far-fetched idea to even adults. Yet in 'Stand And Deliver' Jaime Escalante, a dedicated high school teacher, does just that. In a school where rebellion runs high and teachers seem to prefer discipline over academics, Jaime is not liked as he is threatened and taunted. However, using unconventional teaching methods like using props and humour to demonstrate abstract ideas of mathematics, he is able to win them over. When he realises that they can do more, he decides to teach them calculus, much too advanced for their level, over summer class. Despite the conflicts in their disturbed homes between what they aspire to be and the desires of their parents, they find the courage to pull through with the help of Jaime and pass the test. However the school board challenges their score. When Jaime challenges the board, the students are asked to take a retest, with only one day's preparation. The students are surprised themselves when despite the difficulty, they pass thus reaffirming their teacher's and more importantly, their own faith in themselves. Based on a true story, this low budget but uplifting film won audiences over and was nominated for an Oscar.

I'll Wait For Thee, At The Edge Of Eternity

At the far edge of the known universe,
floating through the abyss between death and illusion
traversing the fertile land between morality and happiness
in the silence that separates truth and faith
tiptoeing over the blade that cuts cruelty from compassion
far from the reach of sin or even god
in that heaven between night and day
in the oasis betwixt lust and sorrow
guided by the candle that flickers between life and death
I shall wait for thee my beloved.

But travel light my love
empty your heart, your mind, your soul
Take my hand and we shall walk close
Fill the treasure of our hearts
with pearls from this depth-less sea
Colour our soul with rainbows
etched on a sky without eternity
Stimulate our minds with sights
over a landscapes built by beauty.

Come alone my dear there
Carry none of your precious illusions:
the truth of your daily fears
the breathing mask of your loves seclusion
the lust for truth flowing through your veins
the ideology that sustain your brain.

But do be there fast my sweets
For eternity has an end
Beauty has its ugliness
Infinite passion turns to depression
For the one who has not his lover
to the one whose love is lost.

Hurry and come to me my ray
We'll build our hut out in this melee
And here my sweet innocent love
forever we shall dance our dance of eternity.