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Cinema Ray - Indentification points
Indentification points
To be absolutely candid, the responses both in terms of quality and quantity far far exceeded my expectations. Heart bracing to know that there are even far more passionate Ray bhakts than I am.
On re-seeing Pather Panchali — albeit on DVD with a distracting logo of its distributor perched on the north-east tip of the screen — still find myself inadequate in expressing the emotional pulls and pressures that one goes through. Perhaps, it does the heart-catalysed response does have something to do with points of personal identification.
The shadow profile of the ancient aunty — the nonagerian sister of Apu’s father — is a precious image. The camera fulls back from the shadow on the wall of her hollow profile to see her gabbing away delightfully.
Another sculpted image — the old woman trying to thread a needle in flickering light, licking the thread to make it slip through the eye of the needle. Another brilliant and as it happens, profoundly moving, an image many of us may have seen right before our eyes in real life.
The great aunt looking through a mammoth hole in her shawl, fantastic. Also her all too what’s-the-big-deal response when she’s complimented by the village people for finally getting a new one.
Her stealthy but what-do-you-expect? walks into an empty kitchen to sneak half a morsel. Her constant little wars with the elders and her unconditional love for the children.
Again, I have to use the word perhaps..perhaps I feel extremely connected to the aunty, and can’t help feeling that the weak, ailing woman is actually the backbone of Pather Panchali. I can identify with that, because a grand-aunt Mehmooda, was very much like her, even sharing the hooked beak nose and a jaw eroded by age into the shape of a V. Mehmooda was the centrepoint of the first screenplay that I wrote for Shyam Benegal. It was made into a film titled Mammo, which was the nickname that she had been given. Mammo ‘nani’ was a delight, too, as crabby as wonderful and as loving.
In the months before she passed away, some eight years ago, Mammo nani was in a near-coma. She would babble away on her sickbed at home and then while she was carried from hospital to hospital (most hospitals in Bombay don’t allow more than a ten-day stay, necessitating the shifts). But as she babbled, I realised she knew long passages of verses by Ghalib and Mir Taqi Mir by rote. The passages of poetry she had never recited when she was all there…the lord only knows what wondrous knowledge and little personal joys, people like Apu’s aunt/Mammo nani take away from them.
I’m aware that am being a degree to sentimental, self-indulgently personal..but that’s the power of cinema, it’s most lasting and valuable one, to stoke the embers of one’s emotional. In fact, if there is one yardstick to estimate a film that you see is its emotional content. Any film of cinema that leaves you cold and uncaring doesn’t work. And this can apply to any ‘character’ you see — be it an Aartoo Deetoo, an animation cartoon Dalmatian, a lovelorn campus dude, an avenger against injustice..the connection points are countless and unceasing. One should be born every day..but well, somewhere along the line, filmmakers by large don’t have their feet rooted in the ground any more.
Could a Nagisa Oshima-style film The Boy — about a kid who is forced by his parents to fake injury in car accidents to earn the family a living — be attempted here. No way. The script will get nods of approval, yes, but then there will be suggestions — how about getting a saviour for the boy, someone who takes him out of his squalor and pain? Life doesn’t quite take that route. Also, even if the saviour was contrived into the script, there will be non-negotiable conditions. Can you get a marketable name? And hello, how about trying an even bigger star for a guest appearance. At the same time, these producers and financiers (be it corporate or traditional Bombay) will admit that star names don’t ensure success…but…but..the contradictions, my friends is blowing in the wind.
And that’s where Pather Panchali serves as another vital identification point. Hundreds of writers-directors would like to..long to make a film that’s about real people in real surroundings. Ray’s wife had to pawn her jewellery to see that the film was completed. The important thing is that there was that passion for cinema…in Ray’s heart and mind.
There can never be another Ray. But he does leave us with inspiration..and hope that some day, someone will approximate images like the aunty’s shadow on the wall…poor but so rich in her heart. Now that’s cinema.
13 Responses to “Cinema Ray - Indentification points”
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Khalid!
I don’t know how you do it man! Did you finally find solace here in PFC? Awesome!
keep em coming!
Your Mammo was one of the best scripts written for Hindi Cinema…
Farida Jalaal was amazing in that film.
Sir,I clearly remember that scene(half a morsel),a moment which is treasured in my memory forever,that was Class in Itself Scene.It had a profound effect on me and whenever that scene comes i dont know but unconsciously a tear drops down my cheek !!!
Read it twice …simply awesome ….
Sir,i listened on Vivdh Bharti’s “Biscope ki baatie ” that Movie Mammo was based on your aunty Life… please write on it.
It’ll be fair to say that watching Mammo and Sardari Begum on Doordarshan transformed my stupid 90’s life and definitively brought me closer to Benegal, Nihalani, Mrinal Sen, et al.
I endorse Shatrughan’s request — please write more on Mammo and your association with Benegal. Any insights on how the great man’s mind functions would be a treat for a Benegalist like me.
Khalid..I endorse your view about cinema being able to touch emotional cords..I’ll tell you about a very different yet similar movie, Sehar by Kabir Kaushik..Arshad Warsi’s mom (Suhasini Mulay) is on the phone with him and imploring him to get back home as she has been threatened..it is by script a simple scene..but the way it was filmed and acted out immediately stirred my cords..and I thought it was only once..amazingly it stirred me again on second viewing and now I have settled into seeing that movie again and again for those small flourishes that Kabir has been able to put into the film. That film has so many small wonderful moments right till the last..Yes, it did not do too well in the halls..but then Jalsaghar also did not do well..in my book, that’s BEST EVER. RAY!!!!
I have to watch Pather Panchali again before I read this one (Again :))
A great read!!
Sarang-
Ray himself accepted that outside West Bengal he is a mere name and very few have actually seen his films. I feel Khalid you will do a great job in bringing about this awareness which a maestro like Ray deserves.
Having a view on Manik Da from the director/writer of movies such as Silsilay,Fizaa is like understanding Vivaldi’s ‘four seasons’ from Annu Malik.
Wish I could repeat Anurag Kashyap’s polite words to you once again Khalid.
Not all Ray’s films are great, some I dare say are not even good. But I guess the difference between Ray and most other directors is that his insights into human nature are often divine. Shorn of the verbal psychedelics Khalid Mohammad makes an important point : those films are memorable that enable us to telescope our personal histories and touch a long forgotten chord or revive a moment of innocence lost. Pather Pachali becomes timeless not just because of the realism of its context but also because of the humanism of its creator. Because Apu, Durga & Pishi could not behave in any other way. Because I watch the movie repeatedly, hoping against hope that Durga would survive and Pishi would not be thrown out. Which is why I also feel lucifer_sam’s comment indicates that he has completely missed the basics of Ray’s ouvre.
Shashank, there is an interesting project we are working on with Shyam Babu around using the new technologies to allow people to engage with him from Gorakhpur to San Francisco.
I think you might be interested in being part and get a chance to also interact with him..
Khalid, are you the same guy who gave four and five star ratings to KJ movies in your reviews in TOI? (Those were the days when you were the official reviewer for TOI).
Very frankly, the reviews seemed so biased I slowly started losing interest in reading your take on films.
Until I read this today. It actually brings alive these scenes in my mind…Beautifully written..
But am still not able to digest the contradictions - if I may say so - in the writings though - and both are you…