| Indian New Wave Cinema By K Hariharan
A
new wave in cinema has to come from across the shores
of India.
In
a long interview on the Star Television network in India
Naseerudin Shah was talking about his experiences on
working in Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding. While elaborating
on the key social issues handled by the film he concluded
that if there was any hope for anything called ‘Good’
Indian Cinema then we have to look to filmmakers who
are coming from outside of India. According to him the
indigenous independent-minded new wave filmmakers were
a spent force and the new wave had to come therefore
from a completely different direction.
Having worked in several films made by these diasporic
filmmakers, he said they had a fresh perspective on
modern life and the various problems besetting India
and besides that they also brought in a professional
approach/ methodology to the sheer process of making
the final film. For Naseerudin Shah filmmakers like
Mira Nair, Kaizer Gustad (Bombay Boys), Nagesh Kukoonur
(Bollywood Calling), Deepa Mehta (Fire) or even Steven
Gunnarson (Such A Long Journey) were the true new wave
filmmakers from across the oceans who were going to
usher in the new revolution.
This is coming from an actor who was virtually the flag
bearer of the new wave cinema of the late 70s and early
80s with films like Manthan by Shyam Benegal, Mirch
Masala by Ketan Mehta, Godhuli by Girish Karnad, Ardh
Satya by Govind Nihalani, Sparsh by Sai Paranjpye, Paar
by Goutam Ghosh, and Chakra by Robin Dharmaraj. And
it is disturbing in more ways than one. Is his disillusionment
with the Indian new wave ilk one of personal disappointment
as an actor or is he reflecting the true symptoms of
a movement gone astray? Does he feel the same way about
mainstream mogul Gulshan Rai with whom he made Tridev
and sang the ever-popular Tirchi Topiwaale or with Raj
Kumar Santoshi with whom he made Chinatown? No, I do
not think he ever had problems with them at all. And
yet he was not going to be their constant favorite too!
His mind was and is still rooted in the euphoria that
surrounded the growth of the new wave but his heart
bleeds like a lover who has been betrayed and pretty
badly at that.
American desi is one of the most financially
successful NR films.
Had the new wave cinema of India betrayed the very cause
that it set out to defend? Were the new wave filmmakers
carrying an agenda on their shoulders, which was just
far beyond their capacity? Or were they Euro-centric
cinephiles merely out to make a quick killing in the
days when contesting/ bashing the Indian nation was
the trendiest indulgence? And what kind of “contesting”
could it have been when most of the so-called “protest”
films were in fact produced by the state machinery itself?
Was it ethically right to make an anti-state/ establishment
film and then expect the very same government to give
it all the awards and publicity? Did they not see something
totally absurd or even seditious in this idea of the
victim being sponsored by its own aggressor? Either
the government/ establishment must have been completely
schizophrenic or extremely clever in manipulating the
mindset of the public to believe that it was truly progressive.
The root problem lies in the fact that the new wave
emerged as part of an India showcasing package called
“Indian Panorama” basically targeted at the western
European cineaste and a few art house film distributors.
The panorama festival conducted completely by the Indian
government would never ever include the popular films
and their producers in that period. In fact one had
to and still has to apply to get into the Panorama and
it is an unwritten rule that if one’s work is melodramatic
filled with stars doing their songs and dance routines,
then it will never ever be selected.
The handful of European critics and international film
festival organizers flown into India would then sit
in judgment over the “delectable” fare dished out by
the state and make their comments. What with a colonial
hangover still clouding our minds, any comment by the
European was sheer”“wisdom”!
The more “realistic” and”“tedious” films among them,
like the works of Shyam Benegal and Adoor Gopalakrishnan,
would qualify for the prestigious events, like Cannes
or Berlin. And the so-called “marginal” among them,
like the works of Jahnu Barua and Manmohan Mahapatra,
would end up in obscure Valladolid, Spain or Palm Springs,
California. But more often than not these selections
were totally arbitrary and ad-hoc.
My own film Ezhavathu Manithan (The Seventh Man) in
1983 was found fit for the then prestigious Moscow Film
Festival, probably because it had a scene where a few
red flags were waved by protesting workers in front
of a rural cement factory. My earlier film Ghashiram
Kotwal was sent to the Berlin Festival in 1978 probably
because it was completely experimental and formally
quite bizarre! In those days the sheer excitement of
traveling to these unknown legendary destinations like
Moscow and Berlin never prompted me to ask these questions,
which I raise now.
What was the true agenda of the government and what
did this highly “undemocratic” act really mean? I deliberately
call it undemocratic because the selection of films
for the”“Indian Panorama” was neither based on the total
number of films produced in the country nor did the
people of the nation get to see these meritorious “national
works” on the screen. Maybe they might not want to see
it in the first place.
The good old colonial agenda of “Divide and Rule” seemed
to be getting implemented all over again. The large
mainstream filmmaking community was completely alienated
to enable the state to project the image it wanted.
On the other hand the “new wave” filmmakers were quite
happy to get this attention since it helped them make
their so-called”“progressive” statement while the government
happily picked up the bill. So what was the source of
the government’s and the filmmaker’s motivation or inspiration?
The agenda was virtually copying a modus operandi followed
by several of the socialist and third world nations
in that period to give themselves a’“progressive” image
in the face of a rapidly developing “free” consumerist
first world. In the peak of the cold war of the early
70s, as missiles surfed the skies killing hundreds of
American GI soldiers and thousands of poor Vietcong
farmers, the western world politicians were convinced
that the only salvation for the world was to get rid
of the communists and all those who were perceived to
be non-democratic. The May ’68 riots in Paris and the
spontaneous protests in Czechoslovakia against the Soviet
occupation gave a major fillip for “free-market” reforms
to be initiated. On the other hand “Intellectuals” in
socialist countries like India, having acquired all
the benefits of the state funding, began to look at
state restrictions now as an infringement to their right
to make”“democratic” choices.
The early 70s was also the period, which saw the first
wave of qualified Indians migrating to the USA and the
UK to take up plum jobs and redefine the category of
the NRI as people who came on “their terms” and not
to be treated as servile migrants. The highly educated
technocrats were projected as carriers of the new Indian
quest for modernization and helping India back home
to get on the fast track! The logic was that if they
could take the west then why should young Indian filmmakers
lag behind. These NRIs were also seen as the good prospective
audience, our agents abroad! How they fared as good
agents can still be a matter of debate!
Nevertheless, responding to the these demands, the socialist
Indian beauracracy decided to follow the trend set by
the eastern European nations like Hungary and Poland,
which leashed out a series of state-sponsored anti-Stalinist
films to impress their western European partners that
they were not lagging behind in expressing their “free
spirit.”
These politically inconsequential, but stylish and aesthetically
delightful, films were lapped up by the critics in the
celebrated festivals of the”“free” world as great examples
of “protest” unmindful of the fact that they were completely
fabricated by the so-called”“repressive” state that
they were against.
Such were the oddities of progress and development.
These films from the “Iron Curtain” nations, which poured
into all the film societies of India suddenly, aroused
the dormant spirit of the urban intellectual in India
to ask for a similar kind of action plan from their
state too. Andrej Wajda (Poland), Ivan Passer (Czechoslovakia),
Tarkovsky (Russia), and Istvan Szabo (Hungary) were
the new gurus. So if it was good for the Big Brother,
it must be good for the younger. Instead of choosing
to express themselves through a more democratic, albeit
chaotic, system of the existing mainstream cinema they
decided to rely on the chosen enemy of popular cinema,
namely the state! Government run organizations like
the Film Institute in Pune, The Film Finance Corp. of
India and other state subsidies provided the fodder
for these small canons. But then surprises never stop.”
The so-called “low-budget’ art or parallel cinema brought
forth some wonderful actors in Naseerudin Shah, Shabana
Azmi, Om Puri, Smita Patil, K.K.Raina, Deepti Naval,
Amrish Puri, and Shankar Nag. Satyajit Ray and Mrinal
Sen were given the back seat as the new English speaking
left-wing urban brigade set forth on a path they had
virtually no connection with — namely ‘the socio-politics
of rural India.”
Films like”Ankur by Shyam Benegal, Ghatashradha by Girish
Kasarvalli, Thampu by Aravindan, Bhavni Bhavai by Ketan
Mehta, Samskara by Pattabhi Reddy were all stories based
on oppression in rural life. While the popular films
were boldly locating themselves in urban stories, the
new wave decided to go back in time and beat the moneylender
in Mother India all over again. Like their left-wing
brothers the Indian new wave was completely confused
about addressing the large ‘illiterate’ population as
their own people.
Some of these films were released in a few theatres
but the majority languished for want of attention or
got telecast once on the government run Doordarshan.
And mind you so too was the case with the’“inspiration”
films in their own nations, be they the socialist bloc
or other third world countries like Brazil, Senegal
or Iran. Their films were also aimed at a “perceived”
developed and progressive world, which later got formally
called the G7. Armed with the reviews and selected praiseworthy
comments from these G7 high priests a whole new concept
of “good” cinema was perpetuated. The government and
the intelligentsia got sucked into this euphoria of
self-pronounced good cinema and this slowly started
gaining credibility.”“Good” cinema came to mean realistic,
single-plot, non-star, mildly dramatic, but definitely
rooting against some establishment or the other. In
fact “good” Indian cinema was always labeled and applauded
as “socially purposeful” and”“committed to change,”
while the irony was that within a post-colonial context
the anti-establishment message was nothing new. It always
being practiced in full swing by the mainstream cinema/
The common viewer could not see or hear anything newer
than what was already being mouthed by their popular
films. So all that remained in these “good” films was
the fact that they were low budget, poor in technical
quality, lacking in entertainment and could not be seen
in regular theatres.
Looking from the shores overseas this was not a new
phenomenon to the western world, which had its own share
of “parallel” filmmakers who called themselves “independent.”
So were they comparable to the “independent” films as
witnessed in the USA and Europe? No. Because to be independent
there meant to be operating out of the studio system,
distributing the films in specialty theatres and surviving
on a substantial video circulation. All these three
factors cannot be applied here since all films in India
are out of the studio system with no specialty theatres
or a legally bound video distribution system. Therefore
the so-called parallel or art cinema in India was doomed
to failure the moment the Soviet Union and their socialist
bloc collapsed. The same fate that befell the prolific
number of films from the East European countries also
happened to the parallel cinema in India. May sound
strange, but it’s true.
Interestingly, when the few filmmakers from the west
made films about India, they too focused on the rural
India or critiqued the Bombay entertainment cinema.
Be it’The River by Jean Renoir or Bombay Talkies by
Merchant and Ivory. And the Indian new wave continued
the same “concern.” The third variety, namely the Raj
films, which would have been extremely saleable in the
first world, was just too expensive for the new wave.
So big-budget TV serials about pre-independent India
like Crown in the Jewels or The Far Pavilions or even
a film like Heat & Dust were made exclusively for
showing in the UK or the USA. The two Indian Raj films,
which made some kind of an impact, were Junoon by Shyam
Benegal and The Chess Players by Satyajit Ray.
It is into such a situation that filmmakers like Mira
Nair, Deepa Mehta, Shekar Kapur and Nagesh Kukoonoor
have landed. They were not going to make costly mistakes
like City of Joy by Roland Joffe or The Buddha by Bernardo
Bertolucci. Instead they too chose the small town/ village
or ripped the Bollywood cinema. The Images of India
and the Image-makers of India! The New Overseas Wave
has also come at a time when the government and the
various states are busy in the process of disinvesting.
At this moment organizations like the Film Institute,
the National Film Development Corp., the Films Division,
Doordarshan and other film/TV facilities have been told
to fend for themselves and if they cannot they will
automatically come on the sales cash register.
So it is not just Naseerudin Shah who has lost faith
in the rationality and the dynamism of the new wave.
Even the Government has realized its folly after having
dumped millions of rupees on the silver screen. Today
film bureaucrats are asking themselves questions like
Should we be in the business of films or for that matter
in hotels, airlines, textiles or even the internet?
The Film Institute for example has 360 staff on the
payroll, of which only about 15 are academic for a student
population of 64. Each student is being subsidized by
the state to the tune of about a million rupees. Anybody
can say this won’t work! The old new wave filmmakers
do not know where to go and beg anymore, so dependent
have they become on the old socialist system. Will the
New Overseas Wave develop a new market in India? Will
it be able to bring in the much-needed marketing talent
to showcase films all over the world? We all know the
enormous impact that the NRI in the USA and UK has made
on the resurgence of Indian mainstream cinema, but will
they help this new wave movement or will the NRI integrate
the popular and the alternative cinema? Whatever maybe
the case, if there has to be a new wave it has to come
from across the shores of India.
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