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Right after I read “THE LAND OF A THOUSAND HILLS by Rosamond Carr”, about Rwanda and her life there since the early 30’s to the present,I felt some sort of kinship with that country.It also took me to “SUNDAY BY THE POOL IN KIGALI by Gil Courtmanche and “LEFT TO TELL by Immaculee Ilibagiza”. These are real life accounts of lives lived under conflict. FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER by Loung ung about the Khmer Rouge followed and soon other books on Genocide and Conflict Resolution.

It made me think of the whys and hows of such shameful happenings, the aftermath and the post conflict trauma. Maybe one could help alleviate such horror by documenting facts, recounting them for public benefit and re-living them via empathy and art? Films?

After the shameful incident at MS University in Baroda last month I have been pondering about the meaning of Art. If it does really have any place in the scheme of things. Are we, as humans so complete? We need to eat, sleep and mate of course but is every thing else extraneous and redundant? Does the artiste actually have greater access to imagination over and above the ‘common woman’ or does responsibility towards a saner society guide her brush strokes. Does she become less of an artiste by letting herself be guided by these boundaries or is she being a mature citizen if she does. Are all of us similar, with no distinct identities and should one celebrate this same-ness if so? If not then why are we so begrudging of another’s individuality?
[http://www.petitiononline.com/MSUAUTO/]

Anjali Ela Menon’s essay on Chandra Mohan and the unfortunate MF Hussain incident [latest India Today, USA] has said most of what I have wanted to vent but even she, a renowned artiste takes recourse in saying “ I cannot comment because I have yet to see the artwork by Chandra Mohan” Seems to me that the higher the development index is rising the tolerance level of aam junta in India is getting lower and lower, and it is acquiring inhospitable powers.

We do not get to see mass protests against demeaning women, women of flesh and blood.Pornography is rampant, easily accessible and widely accepted as entertainement. Every crime possible against the female gender is practiced with glee and improved upon but Oh! my we are so displeased when our ‘unseen’ Goddesses are disrobed! What a farce we have in the name of civic society.

It is this kind of protectionism and disjointed traditionalism that eventually leads to Genocide.
Be it Armenia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Rwanda, Sudan, this incomprehensible dislike of one group of people for another,definitely leads to extermination and execution. Many films have been made on this subject. Lots of course on the Holocaust, Nazis and the Second World War. Much less known are the films that talk about smaller countries and their issues. HOTEL RWANDA [Terry George] of course changed all that.

As happens with most violence it is the women who take the brunt via Rape and unwanted pregnancies. Having especially to deal with the horror of carrying the enemy’s child. Both in Bosnia and in Rwanda it is a well documented fact that these women, having no recourse to abortion have delivered ‘war kids’ and are now dealing with loving and raising them. The subject is too brutal to be dealt with but if ‘artistes’ do not depict it, I don’t know who will. Journalists will state their news and run to the next ‘story’, Philosophers will ponder over the ethics of war; “Good Citizens” will continue to make money and merry while a chosen few will stay to pluck the fruits of war and genocide. They will taste it and talk about it, write poems and stories. Make Paintings and Films.

Unfortunately very few women undertake this task. This does not bode well for the health and healing in societies. The traditional story tellers, our Grandmothers have been replaced by the Television and the Internet, thus the stories of pain and humiliation of women get told less and less and finally it is mostly about ‘policies’, ‘governments’,‘castes’,‘sects’, ‘men-in-higher-places’. Not much is said about the female populace which has had to face this onslaught for no fault of theirs.

A few women film makers have tried their hand at recording the aftermath of Genocide and Civil War/Border Conflicts. They have individualized the struggle and given it a female voice. Of these some are survivors themselves and hence their story is that much more poignant. Very rarely does the telling become humane as there is an inherent conflict between art and atrocity so what does a film maker concentrate on?

PALOMA DE PAPEL by Fabrizio Aguilar, on Peru’s years under the Fujimori regime with the Shining Path terrorizing the highlands, stands out in its magnificent rendition. The lovely Andes are captured exquisitely on film yes but what is more important is that the struggle of the Quechas is depicted so believably by a young boy via whom the whole political history is told.

I have had a rare opportunity to meet up with General Romeo Dallaire [Shake Hands with the Devil], Khassan Baiev [The Oath, Chechnya] and Immaculee Ilibagiza [Left to Tell] in the past few years. One has to only meet such people, survivors of Genocide and Evil in its purest form, to understand why we need Film makers, Story tellers, Artistes, Dancers and Singers. Couching such horrors with the colour palette or with heroes depicting their heroics is the only sane way to be able to face these horrors upfront. It is not child’s play to face death in its eye surely but we need to ‘play’ right after to maintain our sanity.

Rwanda.
SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire [Peter Raymont]
SUNDAY BY THE POOL IN KIGALI [Robert Favreau, based on the fabulous book of same name]
SHOOTING DOGS/BEYOND THE GATES [Micheal Caton Jones]
GOD SLEEPS IN RWANDA [ Kimberlee Acquaro and Stacy Sherman]
GACACA [Anne Aghion]
IN RWANDA WE SAY……[ Anne Aghion ]

Afghaistan:
OSAMA [Siddiq Barmak]
KANDAHAR [ Mohsin Makhmalbaf]

Algeria:
BATTLE OF ALGIERS [Gilo Pontecorvo ]
RACHIDA [Yamina Bachir]

Armenia:
ARARAT [Atom Egoyan ]
SCREAMERS [Carla Garapedian] Music by SYSTEM OF A DOWN

Bosnia/Kosovo:
WELCOME TO SARAJEVO [Michael Winterbottom]
NO MAN’S LAND [Danis Tanovic]
GUERRREROS [Daniel Calparsoro]
PRETTY VILLAGE PRETTY FLAME [Srdan Dragojevic]
GRABAVICA [Jasmila Zbanic]

Cambodia:
KILLING FIELDS [Roland Joffe]

El Salvador:
SALVADOR [Oliver Stone]
INNOCENT VOICES [Luis Mandoki]

Nicaragua:
CARLA’S SONG[ Ken Loach]
NICARAGUA WAS OUR HOME [Lee Shapiro]

Peru:
PALOMA DE PAPEL [Fabrizio Aguilar]
http://www.jaman.com/a/video/0gu5-Z1TqBBw/

Palestine:
RANA’S WEDDING [Hany Abu Assad]
PARADISE NOW [Hany Abu Assad]

Tibet:
KUNDUN [Martin Scorsese]
CRY OF THE SNOW LION [http://www.cryofthesnowlion.com/NewHome.html ]

Uganda:
LAST KING OF SCOTLAND [Kevin McDonald]

India-Pakistan:
TAMAS [Govind Nihalani]
TRAIN TO PAKISTAN [Pamela Rooks]
KHAMOSH PANI [Sabiha Sumar]
PINJAR [Chandra Prakash Dwivedi]
BLACK FRIDAY [Anurag Kashyap]
PARZANIA [Rahul Dholakia]

We in India have our own border conflicts at Kashmir and in the North-east, we deserve to expose much more film roll than what is usually spent on these areas. Conflict and Conflict Resolution are such important topics that I fail to understand why we do not spend more money and time making such movies, to prevent history from repeating itself and even if it does then at least to find solace and meaning through such examples. After all it will not get more graphic and visual than blood and gore, which we the ‘market’ seem to love so much anyway. This is the REAL deal. Not some video game or space odyssey.

How this powerful medium can help portray both sides of the story in a humorous way can be seen in the WEST BANK STORY [Ari Sandel], a short that depicts both Jewish and Palestinian sides in a musical drama with a love story thrown in.
2006 ACADEMY AWARD WINNER for the Best Live Action Short.
http://www.westbankstory.com/

“There are always going to be people who find that [a film about genocide] trivializes their pain, and they’re right,” says Atom Egoyan. “It’s a perverse thing to say when we’re talking about genocide or atrocity, but one has to find a way of entertaining a viewer to engage with the drama, and that’s where it becomes unseemly. It was also my great challenge.”

“In a way, Hotel Rwanda had both the hero and the happy ending, which is really historically anomalous,” says Samantha Power. “That might be a problem, that people can come out of a Rwanda film and feel like: Wooh! Uplifting!”

“You don’t want to desensitize viewers to horror and violence, and of course that can happen if the footage is too extreme. On the other hand, it’s important to convey the horror and the evil. I guess the question for feature film directors is can people tolerate more if they know it’s fictionalized as compared to real footage – real dead bodies as opposed to fictionalized dead bodies”

At this stage we do urgently need to make films about SUDAN and SOMALIA.
Yes about NATIVE AMERICANS too. Slaughters that don’t get written about let alone filmed.
[BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE is now a TV series on HBO]

For the history of Genocide: A PROBLEM FROM HELL by SAMANTHA POWER

Note: By the way I am not even thinking of including ROJA, DIL SE, MISSION KASHMIR or FANAA in the above list since all I remember from these films is NOT the conflict but the fabulous songs and pretty heroines.

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