Passage : Shekhar Kapur’s film respects every single audience
Passage is not a conventional film in an ordinary sense but it does not produce any acatalepsy at all, rather it is so open to interpretation that different audiences may draw different conclusions from whole or parts of the film.
Passage represents his artistic expression more than any other film Shekhar Kapur has made till now. Technical cinematic skills and understanding have been used so well to put emphasis on the understanding and confusions about life.
When one is using the images to create an atmosphere where events are happening and they are open to interpretation then audiences don’t have liberty to think and receive the object (film’s happenings) in terms of past. With every viewing they have to live in the present time because not a story but live events are passing before them in that atmosphere.
Aberration is always there even if it is there for a few moments only but this deviation in attention brings an entirely different meaning to the audience which was not there in the previous viewing because at that time alienation had occurred at some other point of time.
Moving images have this difference from the paintings and sculptures because later art forms are what they are. Surely experience, more wisdom and more understanding about those art forms and life may open deeper meanings in the same creations also but if re-viewing is done within a few hour span only then chances of different interpretations are less .
There were big confusions before the people when Andrey Tarkovsky had created Mirror and even before also many people were confused over his Evan’s Childhood also.
Passage because of its treatment and presentation style, may also confuse many audiences.
Passage may be based on a short story which may be a fiction but audiences may feel associated with it because it may reveal to them some truth about their own lives because there can hardly be a person who has not left few people behind at some time of his life or some body has not left him at some time in life. Geographical distances may come because of any reason but if this spatial distance has caused an emotional separation also then an emotional shock remains present in everybody’s life.
In this era of migration and when people are turning fast into an isolated entity, Passage becomes a very significant film. It represents perfectly the modern man and modern time.
Someone is hankering after the career more or he is taking care of selfish goals more than the collective goals of the family.
Or someone is sacrificing the personal desires for the sake of staying with the family and compromising somewhere in the life.
Some one has actually gone out and has left somebody behind in this progression.
There are many permutations and combination and these possibilities make Passage as a film which is open to interpretation because Shekhar Kapur has allowed only events to occur within the space of the story and judgment are different with different characters and they are subtle in nature. Rather it can be said that not judgment but changes occur in the lives of the charcaters and they leave their erstwhile judgmental positions.
Sequences are not kept on a linearly progressing time scale but they are there like thoughts passing through the mind where memories are overlapped with present time’s thinking, analysis, and emotions.
A director may make a 3-5 minutes film on the story of Passage and things will be quite clear or a director may expand the whole story into a 1.5-2.5 hour long film and emotional journey of the characters may be shown in a logical linear manner. But Shekhar Kapur has tried to be experimental in Passage. He has expanded the material but not too much and dialogues are used only in the portions which are directly related with the story and those portions could make a 3-5 minutes film. His interpretation of life in such circumstances has made Passage a very interesting film.
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There may be a necessity of a common link that remains instrumental in connecting the different people of a family. If that connecting link becomes absent somehow then family structure is disrupted.
There may be an emotional wound which is so deep in existence that even lovemaking kind of activity, which is found normally as a panacea in healing the emotional wounds, may not dispel the depression generated because of that wound.
Those who leave remain under the impression that whenever they come back they will find same situations and people in same conditions and bond with them will remain same. But those who are left behind suffer a lot.
If people are dependent on other people then they don’t pardon easily those who had left them because their going had brought them many limitations and difficulties. Some parts of their personalities have not grown completely because their support system had left them at a crucial age or stage.
Past haunts the human beings. But in reality past can not be undone. It is upto the people whether they want to complain continuously about the wrong doings/happenings of the past or they want to enjoy the union happening in the present time.
Passage progresses in a poetic manner. When one is too much absorbed in her/his own thoughts or world that s/he can walk over not only on something that has been having precious place in the lives of all the concerned people but can actually walk over the lives of others. But there comes a stage when s/he realizes her/his mistakes and regrets it and same place becomes a place of reverence again because now past has become a precious memory. Now person can not defile this place. S/he has to walk over it respectfully.
This respectful realization brings the feelings of free spiritedness as now there is no burden of having hurt the beloved ones on the spirit and now things have been solved and understood in a natural manner.
One can get few things in the life. He may deny these things which are coming to him on their own by thinking that he does not want them.
Few things come to a person.
He hankers after few things and he may not get any of them.
There has to be a healthy understanding about fulfilment of Personal desires, relationships and responsibility towards the important people in the life.A balance is lost in any of these things and a conflict enters into the life.
A bird gives birth to its child and raises it and once child learns how to fly it is left free to explore the life.
Person who had left behind his/her youngsters to explore the life could have done it in a proper way so that they had not got wounded because of this separation.
Siddhartha Gautam had left the home silently in the night to pursue his search about life and death and to search if life had a meaning at all. He had not told even his wife Yashodhara about his departure.
It is said that he comes back after many years and now he has become Gautam the Buddha. Yashodhra complains to him that if he had told her about his search and desire to leave family and everything then perhaps she would not have spent all these years in pain. She asks him whether he could not have told her before leaving his family or if he had told her would she have stopped him?
There is another aspect of her question and complain but that question is still valid in all the relationships. Those who are left behind deserve to know about leaving of important people in their life and the reason behind the leaving. Sometimes departure may be quite painful after telling but then it may reduce their long term pain.
Subjectivity has to enter when story telling is not the only motive but to create an environment where effects of the events happening in a space can be felt.
World of three sisters and an elderly person may open diaries of audiences where they have registered the events happened at some time in their lives.
Open interpretation aspect enhances the beauty of this film - Passage.
Film has got very good music by AR Rahman.
( If one likes he may watch the film here)
P.S > Third Pic – “Sankalpa” an installation by Shekhar Kapur and David Adjaye at Swarovski’s Crystal World in Austria.
Tags: a r rahman, Andrey Tarkovsky, Evan's childhood, Gautama the Buddha, Mirror, Passage, shekhar kapur, Siddhartha Gautama, Swarovski, Yashodhara
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Just saw the film. A truly spiritual experience…thanks to AR Rehman and Benoit Debie (The DOP). As Shekhar Kapur says in the interview – the film attempts to be an art installation rather than a standard piece of cinema we have seen till date. Visually stunning, and a background score that uplifts, not only the visuals but the senses too….
It might confuse, if you start looking for ’story’ or ‘what did he want us to interpret here’ but I’d say – just relax and find your own stories, interpret your own way…or heck, just don’t interpret, see the visuals, listen to the good score, and check out the performers.
Thanks RK! :-)
@Varun,
True.
It is a piece of art created by Shekhar Kapur.
passage was a remarkable experience indeed..thank you
@shashikantha,
good to know that you too liked it.
Passage
This piece of art is surely, one of the most microscopic vision and interpretation of the fragile consciousness of the human conscience and sub conscience.
The idea of moving into the atom’s amalgamation for the subject or the particle nature of emotion is exceptional and finely crafted.
The aesthetic use of art symbols from the crystalline street to the free walk towards the unknown reality in the end, from the glares of the busy roads to the melancholic stories inside subways is terrific.
The use of basic design elements from points, lines, shapes, forms, colours, tones, textures, lights, sound and everything is the path to unfold the curious mysticism trapped in this chaotic life.
Before I go more surreal and dense,
Excellent portrayal of the core!!!
Anugam Goswami
@Anugam Goswami,
Excellent writing on an excellent film. Thanks for sharing.