ചീവീടുകള്‍

ചീവീട്ടുകള്‍ രാത്രിയില്‍
കൂട്ടത്തോടെ വായിക്കുന്ന പുസ്തകങ്ങള്‍
ഇപ്പോള്‍ സ്റ്റോക്കില്ല.പാരായണം
അവര്‍ക്ക് വലിയ ഒരു ഓര്‍മ്മപ്പെടുത്തലാകണം.
മൃണ്മയമായ എല്ലാ സൗഹൃദങ്ങള്‍ക്കും,രാത്രി അത്താഴം കഴിക്കുന്നതിന്‍്‌ മുമ്പു
ഒരു പങ്ക് അവ മാറ്റിവയ്ക്കും.
ആ കാലത്തിനുള്ള ഒരു തിലോദകം.
ഇനി ആരൊക്കെ വരും, പാടും.?
നിശ്ചയമില്ല.ഇന്നലെയും
കാടുകള്‍ വെട്ടി നശിപ്പിച്ചു.
മനുഷ്യനിലെ കവിതകളൊക്കെ
നിര്‍ജീവമാണിപ്പോള്‍.
കവിതകളൊക്കെ പഴകിപ്പോയി.
വാക്കുകളെന്നേ ദ്രവിച്ചു.
എന്തു പരഞ്ഞാലുമതു പഴയതായിപ്പോകും.
ചീവീടുകള്‍ പക്ഷേ പ്രാര്‍ത്ഥന മുടക്കുന്നില്ല.

NEWS PAST
WWW.HINDU.COM

IN CONVERSATION
Feel for the times

Filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasgupta has been consistently producing something new for the last three decades. His soon-to-be released "Swapner Din" looks at the fallout of the Gujarat violence. He talks to RANJITA BISWAS about his films and filmmaking. A poet, sometime professor of Economics, and a prolific film maker with a knack for sweeping the awards at the National Awards and film festivals abroad, Buddhadeb Dasgupta is one of the most important filmmakers in the post-Ray era, Excerp ts from an interview:

Who wrote the story for your upcoming film "Swapner Din" (Chased by Dreams)?

This is my own story.
I believe it revolves round three principal characters — one of them a pregnant (Muslim) woman, Amina, on the run from the infamous Gujarat riots.

Is this film your response to the violence of our times?

Not exactly running away from a specific situation. Everybody has a dream and this is an individual's aspiration towards achieving that dream. Yes, those dreams often get trampled in times of violence.

Dreams die.
Social violence
So are you going back to your earlier films of the 1970s when you pondered on political violence?

"Mondo Meyer Upakhyan", on the other hand, seems to focus on the violence that perpetrates our patriarchal society through the projection of the lives of the sex workers.
Today, we live in a very violent time, not necessarily associated with war. On the surface, we believe that in a society like ours — steeped in rural traditions — violence is less evident. But that's not true. Society as a collective force often encourages group violence. You can see it all around. And there's the intellectual violence, all too evident today. Violence, not necessarily physical in nature, is a recurring theme in many of my films.

Need for a dream
But do you also believe in the ultimate triumph of goodness? Are you optimistic that change can come? In "Mondo Meyer..." or "Charachar", this humanity came through.
Yes, humanity wins through. Here's the importance of a dream. In "Mondo Meyer... " the sex worker's daughter had a dream, of studying and doing something in life and not necessarily follow in her mother's profession. That dream sustains her and she does make a break from her ordained life responding to her teacher's call to come away.

You seem to be fond of magic realism. It is rare to find directors in the country portraying this aspect in their films. Some say you're the only one to do so.
(Smiles) Perhaps people find this — magic realism — more in use in my films. Reality is boring sometimes, so you put magic elements into it. Magic realism, to put it briefly, is "putting reality in such a way that it becomes real". I've been treating particular scenes with elements of magic realism for quite sometime now.

There are a lot of folk elements in your work too.

From the very beginning I have used folk elements in my films. They are so rooted in our culture but they have lots of magical elements and imagination too.
After Satyajit Ray, your film "Uttara" got the best film award at Venice film festival in 2000.

Did the simplicity of the story — a power play between two men and a woman in a village — appeal to the foreign audience? Or was it the exotic elemtn?

BIJOY CHOWDHURY

Ultimately, it's the language of the cinema that appeals to the audience. If you are true to the medium of film, you get a response, wherever the story is located.
How do you look at documentary making? You have done quite a few documentaries, including the latest on artist Rabin Mondal.

I love to do documentaries. It's very relaxing. After the "Mondo Meyer Upakhyan", I did one on Rabin Mondal, whose work I greatly admire. The other thing about documentaries is that, it's very uncertain how it'll shape up. Features need much more rigid planning, the script, location, everything has to be ready before the shoot. In a documentary, the script moves according to the moment, at most times for me at least, and I can experiment a lot. It's a discovery every moment.

Marketing
Your "Mondo Meyer... " was sold for an unprecedented sum abroad.

How important is marketing to films in today's context?

Forget about making films if you can't market it. The film must reach the audience; only then you can continue to make films. Today, I can't make films only for the Bengalis, it must be for a wider audience, not only at home but also people spread across the world in these globalised times.
However, it must be a good film; otherwise marketing is not going to work. Those who buy films in the international market are not fools. They know the pulse of the audience; so you have to deliver. That doesn't mean you compromise on your artistic integrity as a filmmaker. Honesty always comes through.

Hindi commercial film producers are now coming to Kolkata's Tollygunge. You are making a film for high-profile producer Jhamu Sughandand with Mumbai film stars too.

I don't believe in words like "commercial" filmmaker or actor. I charge a good sum of money to direct. So am I not a "commercial" director too? The artistes are here because they can act. That's why they have survived. It's the director's job to bring out the talent within. The fact is, there's a big potential market out there for filmmakers. One has to explore and make use of it for creative expressions and also learn how to market their works.

BIJOY CHOWDHURY

www.hindu.com
Printer friendly page Send this article to Friends by E-Mail