Voices from the Waters 2008 : looking back, and looking ahead
After covering the festival last year, I had greater expectations this time around. And rightly so, I stood vindicated. The films that were covered as a part of this year’s festival not only satisfied an avid film-viewer, but went beyond the essential duties of an event of such stature – the selection of films, the issues that it touches upon, the domains it explores, and more importantly the ambitions it aspires at, make the whole effort worthwhile.
There is always going to be a huge number of films that might look intimidating if you are looking at covering all of them in a festival or event like this. But you slowly settle down with the plan, and look at the films not as an objective but as a wholesome entity, each existing in its broader existential sense, breathing and sprawling in their own individualistic entirety, and an acute sense of charismatic beauty, a quality which they possess devoid of any touch of conflict. This is what the Water festival stood for this year.
There were obviously some films that topped my priority ‘looking forward to’ list, and some of those that did sound like ‘I know what that will be about’, and then the ‘let us see if they break the stereotype’ ones and may be also the ‘oh so you think I have not seen it before’ variety.
It is an enriching feeling that the festival left me with – one that fills me up with a certain accomplishment, however meager and minute in its manifestations, but enriching nonetheless.
Water. One alarming sound, one indispensable subject, one unanimous element, and one never-ending quest. This water, the end-all of our existence and greater spiritual pursuits of our existence, takes a greater meaning and fills up the space we exist in. This water, the penultimate milestone of our journey, touches us in ways we can register and ways we can not.
I get up every morning, I brush my teeth, I wash my face, I drink from the water purifier, I buy a mineral water bottle, I splash some water from the pool onto my kids, I look at a landscape painting and marvel at the glittering patterns on the water… it is almost divine, and sometimes so inconsequential that it is mechanical in its contribution to our lives.
Water, the recurring motif of my life, the prominent yet unrealized concern of my life.
Cinema, the one object I revere, the unattainable goal, the ever-enchanting wishing tree.
Cinema and water come together.
Cinema and water come together in more ways than we imagined.
Cinema and water come together in ‘Voices of the Waters’.
Having seen 50 odd films or so, on the global theme of water, a symbol of life, a necessity, a relation, and looking back at the endless sources of knowledge, I feel Raga of River Narmada and its own little divine Dhrupad device defines the festival, its unspoken imagery, an ode to the water of River Narmada, living a life of its own, speaks volumes about what is being talked about here. And it goes much beyond what can be ever put on paper. The pointblank numbness that the mind witnesses in the ethereal air it creates is inexplicable. And you find yourself drawing parallels to the imagery of water, its universally microcosmic implications, and yes, the Dhrupad won’t leave you for good.
I was playing Mr. Chronicler in the festival. So my job was to put on a kurta, pick up things that go with – a camera bag, a journal, an unkempt look and just go and sit in the auditorium, and as they say, let cinema take over. Well, cinema did take over. And quiet stereotypically at that.
I have spoken about the films I was looking forward to in the festival in my previous preview article on the festival. And had also expressed the possibility that the films might not fare up to what I expect. So this happened as well. Raga of River Narmada, the inaugural film that I saw took monstrous proportions and didn’t leave me.
The Rising Wave, though having started like a conventional documentary took things ahead in its broader outlook and larger canvas. It painted issues in a film in smaller microcosms and presented us a threatening larger picture very subtly. I was bowled over by the final silent images of a water bottling plant somewhere in North India, you could just hear CLACK BOOM CLACK, the mundane chores of the plant, like a clock slowly ticking away. And yes, the bottling plant or the mineral water brand it produced was called ‘McKenzie’.
It is not easy to make a film on Water and get away with it. You have to travel with the film, stand by it, be updated on what it stands for, and speak for the problem. I met and saw film makers that did this, and some shied away a little from committing to all of that. And rightly so. It’s a personal choice. You are a film maker, and you are someone who is conscious. Or you are someone who is not a film maker but someone who wants to have a voice. The fun is to dissect each film and film maker on this dhuri.
The Rising Wave was ably put together by Yask Desai and Shweta Kishore.
Jala Tarangini, a film made by the students and teachers of Christel House, Bangalore, was an un-cheered-for candidate in this larger looking scheme. But surprisingly, it came out a winner. Well, of sorts. The film is essentially just a collage of videos of kids playing with the sounds of water and their interpretations of it through playing musical instruments in the quiet exteriors of nature. Initially the images and sounds look a tad asynchronous, but as it concludes you feel a joy, the kind you feel after a successful ‘no major issues’ day of babysitting or handling a bunch of kids. I later interviewed the team behind the film, and Thomas, their music teacher, and it helped me understand the film and the whole process a little more.
Jala Tarangini hasn’t gone to any ‘festivals’ as such. So if anyone thinks the film sounds good, contact me.
Waterlands, a quintessential high production value European(British) film made on the reedbeds, salt-marshes and wetlands of the United Kingdom was a visual spectacle, with an exquisite command on technique, a love for color, frames, aesthetics in place, and a very ‘pleasing’ tale of the migratory birds, mammals and insects of the wetlands.
Oil Spill in Lebanon, an Italy-Lebanese colab film which chronicles one of the most threatening and devastating images of the ominous oil layer on the natural seas, scores its point home quite effectively.
A picturesque beach, an almost perfect holiday resort…
“May be I will start doing more environment art later. Right now, my concern is to clean the beach. “
“In this country, they stop something, and start something else…”
The film covers these events along the adjoining coastline of the Jiyyeh Plant(bombing of oil tank by Israel), how the burnt oil makes a solid sediment on the sandy sea bed, and how hard it is to undo the damage.
Baikal, the immortal lake, a Franco-Russian colab, was shown under the ‘Waterscapes’ section. It captures the imagination of inhabitants of the frozen lake, and how the Baikal goes beyond being just a life-support, and how it is a part of their lives. It captures different facets of life through different characters, how they view Baikal, what is their perspective on the changing world around us, their little problems of loneliness and their views on politics(Lenin, Communism, erstwhile Soviet Union), killing seals and how it is more than just an act of sustenance of life.
Texas Gold, The Return of Cuyahoga, The Water Front(People Speak out), and to a certain extent, FLOW(For Love Of Water) present the American side of the problem.
When Diane Wilson, mother of five and fourth generation fisherwoman finds out that her home Calhoun County, Texas has been named among the most toxic places in America as more and more chemical waste is recklessly dumped into blue Gulf bays of Texas, she knew she had to take action even if it was an impossibly uphill battle against the most infamous and murkiest of all chemical corporations- Dow/Union Carbide with their huge pockets and bands of influential lawyers and manipulative PR agents. A self-confessed ‘unreasonable woman’, Wilson with sheer courage and conviction, embarks on a long, arduous and continuing struggle to get the toxic trespassers off her home. The spirit of this tough sun-burnt determined woman who dares to call it as it is, is captured in director Scott’s award-winning and inspirational documentary.
Texas Gold looks at a lady’s lonely struggle against the corporates and her self-convinced belief in the power of quiet rebel, the film has its Texan sensibilities in place, a sarcastic look at the ‘blue gold’ phrase, a simple yet poignant picture of how an individual can make a difference in this no-one cares about no-one world.
The Return of Cuyahoga
Cleveland, city of light, city of magic
Cleveland, city of light, you’re calling me
Cleveland, even now I can remember
’cause the cuyahoga river
Goes smokin’ through my dreams
- Lyrics from ‘Burn On’ By Randy Newman (Sail Away, 1972)
Cuyahoga is one of the ‘positive’ messages amongst the films in the festival. It traces the history of the city of Cleveland along the banks of Cuyahoga river through the reminiscences of its people. The stark indelible images of ‘This river was on fire’ from the infamous fire of 1969, the Time article and the signals it sent across, how the city fought against the evil grin of the environmental threat of industrialized waste, and how it all came together back to where it was. The film is glaring little hopeful account of the start of environmental activism through the devices of Clean Water Act, River Clean-up, EPA(Environmental Protection Act), ecological bulkhead, chemical cleaning of the river sludge, point/non-pint source pollution, West Creek Restoration and sound and responsible state governance.
FLOW (for love of water), as a film, will not have any problem in reaching out, given its recent NY premiere, and the buzz it has generated. So I will take less time to highlight its universal relevance and the systematic approach its director, Irena Salina occupies to cover the issue right from Rajasthan, India to Japan to South Africa to Brazil to Bolivia to France to Canada to the state of Michigan, USA.
Watching the film with Rajendra Singh, the revolutionary water-conservationist from Rajasthan, was a delightful experience. The film on one hand, gets complex at times, and Rajendra Singh and (Late) Siddharaj Dhaddha appear in the film and simplify all of it in their Gandhian way of looking at things. This is one reason why FLOW works given all its sometimes boring trajectory of following up an issue, then the steps taken against it, the power of a collective boycott and the works.
Rajendra Singh shared his thoughts after the screening, and was in high praise of the director who according to him has become quiet an Indian herself now, and was very meticulous in planning out each detail in her research for the film through endless trips to India, speaking to each individual concerned and finally presenting the point so well in form of quiet a long film (by documentary standards). These are some of the reasons I think FLOW sets the bar high for a contemporary film on the environmental film of such a global canvas, and rightly so, if you want people to watch it and take home the message it conveys.
Moving from the western themes to more relatable issues, we had quiet a few films that succeeded in capturing the audience. These were Mahua Memoirs, Kaali Bein(The Black River), Gharat, Liquid City, Bittersweet Waters and My Name is Palaru.
Vinod Raja’s Mahua Memoirs is a bittersweet symphony of the tribal communities living under threat from the mining industry alongside the Western Ghats in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa. It sets high standard with the very first frame of a tribal song in the quiet expanses of a remote village at night. In its analytical approach and lazy pace, it captures tribal lineages, folklores, stories of heritage and respect, means of tribal livelihood, legacy of resistance, the state’s approach to the problem, the mockery of ‘compensation’, and unleashes the face and the actual proceedings of how the multi-million corporate deals take place far away from the ones affected, and not surprisingly least demanding of their consent.
It might look uninteresting on paper, but the film has to be seen to experience the joy of watching something so well-researched and worked-out, which got its well deserved Silver Conch in this year’s MIFF.
On the banks of the once great river Kali Bien, sat the wise sage, his feet folded and his mind’s eye meditating on the river water, remembering how it once thrived with a natural roar setting rhythm for life and livelihood along its banks. He thought of the tons of sewage and toxins that was thoughtlessly dumped into the purity of the river not just tainting its water but literally asphyxiating its natural course and flow. Recollecting himself after the long serene meditation, the sage declares that he himself and alone would resurrect the mother river to her past glory. All who seek to join are welcomed but not one hand is forced. What stirred in the heart of one man quickly spreads to the rest of community. A movement not just takes birth but evolves and becomes a collective force, a voice, a song. The river will be released and once again flow free but the surrounding industries ever-seeking to dwarf the people, to mute their song continue to move in with their cancerous wastes.
The Black River (Kali Bein) by Surendra Menon falls in the category of ‘film badi ya issue’. As the film started, the dadima voice over almost put me to sleep, but when the issue came to the fore, ‘Baba’, the one man army, its protagonist took my attention like I never imagined. I mean here is a man who constructs roads, lays the entire water distribution system with no official knowledge or expertise on the subject, almost single-handedly changes the face of an entire civilization depending on the Kaali Bein river. And then you talk about religion! I for one, never thought of religion or politics in Baba’s intentions. He is a ‘rab ka banda’, which quiet beautifully gets summed up by the end of the film when two sufi singers croon ‘babaji saada haj ho gaya’ in praise of Baba, hence placing him above any man-made divides.
Baba had come down for the festival with his own crew of loyal followers and chroniclers, and his post film interaction with the audience only took the festival ahead in what it aspires for. I grew very fond of Baba but could never approach him, always wondering what will I say or ask him. Happens.
Bittersweet Waters traces the history of ancient irrigation methods from the 6th century Chola kingdom right to the present day. Irrigation projects and the changes that haven been registered legally since then. Being a very European documentary film in its approach and production, the film did make you jump from your seat by using dramatic film scores from Bollywood and Tollywood at the most unexpected times to go with the most contrasting images on screen. I mean imagine an ancient water storage tank and the mundane images and sounds it creates, and the music to go with it – Bachna Ae Haseeno’s famous opening.
Liquid City(who owns the water) by Mathew Gandy was again being a Indo-UK product an outsider’s perspective of an Indian problem. This time it was the water distribution system or the lack of it of the metropolitan Mumbai. The film starts off with urban structures and images(paintings) and Kiran Nagarkar’s words. It then moves on to the device of speech, chawl dwellers, activists, NGO’s, looking back at the perpetual flood issue of this coastal throbbing town. The film did stack up one problem after the other but when I thought the director will come in now with something, at least the hope of reaching a solution, the film got over.
My Name Is Palaru
R. R. Srinivasan has an eye for frames. So even his film, which essentially traces the course of the Palaru river, and gives the river a character of its won, even touching upon some very controversial ‘troubled water’ issues of inter-state river water conflict in South India, is a well-framed picture. Interspersed with comments from the victims who have quietly taken to the very occupation that destroys their conventional and traditional livelihood, the film flows freely, quite literally, and sadly ironically to its subject, Palaru River.
Srinivasan created a buzz of sorts and left a hope amongst young film makers in his interaction through the ‘River Voices’ event when he urged the students to ‘get out of the class room and start making films’. Good luck for your film career, Srinivasan.
Every film in the festival further establishes the universally grave nature of the problem – damns, irrigation projects, evacuation of the traditional dwellers, biological aftermaths of an economic decision, contamination, government policies and regulation, multinationals and their different faces.
Film as a medium does take a backseat at times and that varies from film to film.
Where something like Blue Gold in the Garden of Eden focuses on the problem, people, waterscapes, voice overs, the water issues of Turkey & Syria, something like Switch Off is more blatant and direct in its approach. It is interesting, this method of expression and the way it results in affecting your reaction to an issue. And that is how it is different from a news channel story. And hence the relevance of such films and film makers.
Continuing on Blue Gold, whatwith the expanse of Turkey, Mesopotamia, Euphrates, Syria, Tigres River, you can’t help but achieve a certain impressive aesthete in the course of the capture. The dust, water, quiet landscapes, the inherent music in nature, the ancient architecture, sense of pride in history of the inhabitants, and above all the very people make it a solid capture. The film also presents a clear picture of the Global Water Crisis from the point of view of a culture known for its ancient irrigation technology – the Kurdish Culture.
Discourses in ten segments also achieves this level of success in capturing the different stages and faces of the problem – creation of an autonomous Water Stock, World Water Forum and the shaky grounds it stands on, Neo-Liberal model, Thirst Strikes, campaign for inclusion of Water as a Human Right, the 150 year old Mexican Valley and how different faces of this issue look at it, the agitation and the means of agitation of the indigenous communities(Masahua), a doctored and manipulated capitalist crisis, international solidarity amongst common victims, a collective conscious and awareness, MARCH – power of the people, companies like SUEZ and their take on the issue(privatization de agua).
“If Germany can sell beer, why can’t we sell WATER?”
COA- the river of a thousand engraving by Jean-Luc Bouvret presented a different aspect of this problem – ARTS. And that too, ancient arts, through tracing the history of engravings from the Ice Age, anthropomorphic figures, Paleolithic art, a marginal phenomenon or informational gatheways to a prehistoric civilization, ‘tattoes’ rocks(modern coexistence of art on rocks), ‘public’ and ‘private’ art in its placement and the meaning(meaning lies in execution), pre-historic messages, construction of a large dam in the Coa river valley and how it endangers an ancient treasure.
“Are these artistic expressions or territorial markings?”
One of the greatest mysteries of the world lay unseen, underneath the unsuspecting calm of the river Coa in northeastern Portugal. In the late 1980s the secret would be uncovered and the whole world would be privy to thousands of priceless engravings dating back to the Paleolithic era carefully preserved by the river. Out of the rare engravings of human and animal representations and abstract depictions, researchers and archeologists would get a rare insight into prehistoric societies. This discovery of the Paleolithic complex also had another unanticipated implication. The controversial hydroelectric power plant project that was proposed along the Coa river valley thus effectively drowning it would be vetoed off the planning boards inspite of the tentativeness shown by influential bodies like the UNESCO as the general public and scientific community raised their voices and picketed in a successful campaign that suspended all construction operations and the river Coa still flows calm and the mystery of its valley is now a protected and treasured monument for all to discover, explore and learn. Director Bouvret’s film gently guides its viewers through a journey along the river and through the prehistoric engravings into the vivid world of a time bygone.
Another piece from the Frozenscapes was Lost Paradise- the Arctic is melting, which shows a real picture of the much-abused term – global warming and melting of the arctic ice. Here, its not only the visceral ‘melting of ice’, it is the withering away of a culture that takes prominence. A Canadian island in the Arctic Circle, “when dogs would become as swift as shooting stars, we will see the change..”, frozen sea and land, a matter of fact treatment, a child’s take on ‘the world is changing’, the locals narrate the signs of the changing times, increasing rains and how it causes them problem in hunting for meat, the scientific theories behind it all(ice reflects sun the highest, Global Elbido of the Planet(0.3)), a fragile ecosystem.
Amidst all this, one man walks casually into the outbacks and shoots at the Muskox, almost looking like he is out to shop for an i-Pod.
Images like the ones from this film and Baikal look picturesque no doubt yet gives us a keyhole in worlds we will never explore, lives we will never witness.
Coming to the final section of the Masters, the festival proudly presented its own share of Werner Herzog and Bert Haanstra.
Werner Herzog’s The Wild Blue Yonder is a madcap sci-fi fantasy, a semi-fiction, semi-poetic take on the threats we as a civilization pose to ourselves and our future generations. An alien(his Michael Douglas sensibilities in place) starts talking to the camera about how he came years ago from Andromeda Galaxy, a planet called The Wild Blue Yonder, pregnant with affection in his reminiscences, he even has archive footage to substantiate this claim, we move on to see poetic images of the space a la 2001. But Herzog doesn’t let you recede in the comfort. He cuts to the present, to the madcap alien protagonist and makes a poignant solid commentary on all that we see and do not see.
The references vary from Roswell to Apocalypse to life in a spacecraft(“the spacecraft is like an island”) to the acute idea of non-inclusion(“there is no sun, there are points of light”, “chaos is a natural order of things”, “a utopia of an ideal colony”) to interplanetary superhighways, Galileo space-probe calculation, chaotic transport, gravity tunnels, frozen skies of liquid helium, trajectory of life against an infinite portal of infinite space, symbolic intrusion and disturbance of the eternal chaos.
I mean what more could you expect?!!
Coming to Bert Haanstra, where do I start? I saw four of his films and I am afraid if I start talking about them I will lose my water festival write-up stream. Anyways. Can’t help it. Let me start with an often quoted anecdote. One of his films, the longest one, The Voice of the Water, does not have subtitles. So our man, Siddarth Pillai reaches out to Haanstra’s son, Rimko, expressing our concern. Let me put it this way:
“There are no subtitles to the film”
“Try watching without”
That’s it. Kahaani khatam.
Now go back watch Haanstra’s films and come back to me.
Haanstra is a different league altogether, the way he observes life in film, its human everyday chores of a fisherman, the silly acts of children, of a society in its idyllic and gay abandon, the traditional weekly routines, and all that places against the enormity of nature.
The ship is a symbol in ‘And there was no more sea’. Here is a film maker making love to the craft, and so bloody good at that! The symbolism of the film appears and reappears amidst the mad narrative.
Watching his films makes me wonder about the world he lived in, to just marvel at a world that fosters an imagination and reaction like his. Every minutely appearing motif or frame or face or shadow looks chiseled just appropriately for the sake of on-screen aesthete.
In the final ‘ringing of church bells’ montage, a group pf sailors quietly march in unison with the church bells. Each face and each gait a startling and critical constituent piece of this ensemble. A kid plays with the mud. Cut to the striking visuals of a dam being constructed. The symbolic ‘killing’ of a sea by a man-made device, and man(the sailors) looks at the monster it has created but can’t do anything about it now…
And There Was No More Sea.
So that, my friends was the Water film festival, in retrospective. Of course there are many more films that deserve a mention.
Many more films that deserve a mention:
Warming - a sweet little animation short about how water converts from a friendly form to a deadly one
Waters of Despair – a film on the flood problem of Bihar
Home Work – an innocent look at the construction of dams from the eyes of a student who travels for this ‘summer assignment’
Dessica – a surreal play of images of a man sitting against two jars of water
Drying Up Palestine – a film on the water distribution tension created by the civil and political worsening of situation in Israel/Palestine.
Up The Yangtse – I am yet to watch this film
Carpa Diem – an ad-like short about two kids – one wasting water indifferently and the other in need of water for the fish in the aquarium.
The Woman from the River and the Land Thief – a scrambled piece of beauty from Amazonia.
Looking ahead, the festival seeks to travel, and the signs are positive, the films are no doubt some of the best documentaries and social commentaries to have come out of anywhere in the world in recent times and do deserve to reach out to as many people as possible.
As an added feature, do check out this video for the Laya Project, a nicely put together music festival from the Tsunami victims from Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar and India.
Laya Project’s musicians are the people of coastal and surrounding communities in the 2004 tsunami-affected regions of Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar and India.
This production is based on regional folk music traditions, recorded and brought back to the studio to create a composition that mixes and enhances the original recordings, and embarks on a musical journey crossing borders, while preserving the music of the people.
The Laya Project is a personal and collective tribute to the resilience of the human spirit, and is dedicated to the survivors of the 26th December 2004 Asian tsunami.
Stiils & Clips from the festival.
Tags: World Cinema
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
Werner Herzog’s The Wild Blue Yonder is superb…some of the most beautiful images I have seen in a movie…and some of them weren’t even shot on “film”. And Brad Dourif is so so good…
Herzog’s films are an exercise in meditation. The Wild Blue Yonder blew me away. I didn’t expect such dexterous images and sounds. Have seen only White Diamond apart from this one.