Film and Accountability: Ritwik Ghatak's „Image Discourse' on Bengal's Partition Dr
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The International journal of analytical and experimental modal analysis ISSN NO: 0886-9367 Film and Accountability: Ritwik Ghatak's „Image Discourse' on Bengal's Partition Dr. Sravani Biswas Associate Professor, Department of English Tezpur University Napaam, Tezpur: 784028, Assam Email: [email protected] Mobile: +91 8638750574 Title: Film and Accountability: Ritwik Ghatak's „Image Discourse' on Bengal's Partition Abstract: The objective of the paper is to closely examine Ritwik Ghatak‟s film Subarnarekha, to analyse the partition-discourse that forms the centre of his directorial consciousness. The paper addresses Ghatak‟s narration in terms of film semiotics. Two more films of Ghatak have been cited for further illustration. It is observed that the river Subarnarekha (Golden Streak) is the leitmotif of moral degeneration undergone by the refugees. It is a unique and bold take on the historical tragedy which had naturally led to filmic depictions of the refugees as victims. Ghatak steps beyond the cliché in a soul searching venture to identify why this partition continues to inflict decadence. The dislocated refugees resist any paradigm shift. Romantic nostalgia turns them blind to all the ingrained social and moral weaknesses that had, in the past, led to the Partition. In order to keep alive the past, they carry the germs, which, in hostile conditions erupt to destroy. The camera goes on searching for the river Subarnarekha which, most of the time remains invisible. It comes back with all its life only when the story reaches that point of possible paradigm shift, which Ghatak had envisioned for the refugees. Keywords: filmsemiotics, refugee, decadence, paradigm shift. ***** The name of Ritwik Ghatak acquired international recognition through his sensitive and unique rendition of Bengal‟s Partition, of which he was a victim. The films clapped together as his Partition Trilogy are Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960), Komol Gandhar(1961), and Subarnarekha Volume XII, Issue I, January/2020 Page No:1692 The International journal of analytical and experimental modal analysis ISSN NO: 0886-9367 (1965). Critics have dealt with his revival of the melodrama, his use of myths, and his Marxist leaning as a filmmaker. Sayantan Chowdhury connects his films to European visual avant- gardism. He underscores “the “distinctive visual appeal of engaging the real”(2015,260), which he likens to Soviet determinism- “a determinism that was historicised within Soviet cinema of the time, especially in the iconic repertoire of Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin and,before them, Dziga Vertov.”(260). In my article I will explore the visual in the form of raw nature that affects the common audience with an appeal no less significant. As Bengal‟s partition is already inseminated in the Bengali psyche through everyday negotiations with idioms, jokes, abuses, folk-songs, novels or stories, as well as the everyday struggle for existence, it is not difficult even for a spectator unaware of film theories to connect images to meaning. Determinism which precludes free will is ingrained in the Partition project where the people hardly had any choice. Ghatak ably uses landscape to put forward this sense of fatedness. This article examines Ritwik Ghatak‟s film in relation to the experience of landscape and the tension it creates vis a vis the human subjects and their lives depicted through melodrama. It begins with the hypothesis that the river Subarnarekha, which flows through an arid landscape, acts as the leitmotif of hope and possibilities of regeneration during a time historically blacklisted as one of the bleakest tragedies of Bengal. When it comes to Bengal‟s partition in 1947, rivers like the Padma, Arial Khan or the Ichamati entered narrations of migration and escape. In partition novels like Arjun or Keya Patar Nouko these rivers have been depicted as deep, dark, and dangerous which the migrants had to cross at the risk of their lives.It may be noticed that particularly in case of themes of Bengal‟s partition, the landscape plays an important role to convey the complexities of the refugee‟s life more than words or dialogue. In Bengal‟s partition literature, depiction of familiar landscape, its flora and fauna has been a conscious literary device on the part of the writer or filmmaker. But Ghatak‟s choice of the river Subarnarekha itself creates a space for a new discourse, because nowhere is this river and the arid landscape related to the established motifs of Partition. Ghatak chooses to use this cinematic landscape as the objective co-relative for a problematized perception of the Bengali partition experience. On the other hand Ghatak uses songs, both classical and Romantic from Tagore, that invoke nature‟s plentitude , both in terms of physical nature as well as human emotions. This oxymoronic combination creates a schizophrenic experience for the audience. Partition had uprooted thousands, and the emptiness of the „raad‟ landscape easily slips into the role of an Volume XII, Issue I, January/2020 Page No:1693 The International journal of analytical and experimental modal analysis ISSN NO: 0886-9367 objective co-relative to depict despondency. Yet the mind imagines and hopes. The elusive Subarnarekha keeps appearing and disappearing and so do the songs reiterate. This article probes into such presences and absences in order to delve into meaning. „Subarnarekha' is the name of a river that in the past, had attracted the Bengalis as if it held all their dreams of the ideal pastoral life. Myths around the river that one could find gold dust on its bed enhanced the aura of the idyllic as the source of paradisiac joy. Ghatak uses the name of the river which, when translated into English means „the golden streak' as a metaphor for the migrant's elusive dream. The camera goes on searching for the river, which, most of the time, remains almost invisible, like a faded line in the far horizon. Thus the use of the river as a visual discourse is dialectic; while representing the dream or desire it constitutes absences. The act of creating a utopia here is in effect reaching a dead end. The film ends with the disappearance of the water, leaving the viewer's eyes parched at the endless view of sand. Ghatak subverts the romantic notion of nature as hope and nostalgia. Instead, it underscores a future that will continue to degrade human quality and culture in the context of Bengal's partitition. Bengal was amputated in 1947 by the British. This division seemed hurried and whimsical in nature and did not address true and practical issues like economic discrepancy or unequal development. So the crisis continued. Whenever the partition of 1947 is depicted in Bangla literature or film, the continuous reverberation of its aftermath haunt the work. It is analogous to the never-ending continuity of Revenge Tragedy. Though Ghatak had experienced the first partition before he made the films, he had already foreseen the bleak future in the form of gradual degeneration of human relationship in the context of the growing social and economic crisis. Ghatak‟s violent reaction to the destiny of the particular group of Bengali victims could find expression in a melodramatic style, a style consciously avoided by his famous peers. His films remind us of the „yatras‟ of Bengal that are native to its grass root culture. To depict a state of mind that is shaken to its core requires a form that is flexible enough to accommodate unrestrained emotions. And where would one find this capacity to deal with the raw instincts if not in the carnival modes of art. Unlike Satyajit Ray who is restrained, Ritwik opted for a complete ventilation of the wild emotional side of the artist. His films sweep the viewers into the unhindered flow towards the climax. After reaching the climax he stops and the viewers are enabled to feel the heart beating fast-as if he would drag them into the crux of extreme human Volume XII, Issue I, January/2020 Page No:1694 The International journal of analytical and experimental modal analysis ISSN NO: 0886-9367 experience in order to shorten the distance between the characters and the audience. Ghatak‟s sensitive use of human melodrama against the backdrop of an arid dry landscape helps to render a language capacious to capture not only the complexity of human consciousness but also, at the same time the project of the director. At the end Ghatak often returns to repeat a scene depicted earlier but in a different context. It impresses the reader to feel both stasis and change. It is as if tragedy in the refugee‟s life is not unusual, and the surrounding landscape remains callous to the pain and loss. Ghatak‟s films defy and question the separation of melodrama and realism in filmmaking. Ghatak successfully used melodrama to portray a historical crisis, the partition, suffered only by a particular group of people when the rest of India was engaged in celebrating the freedom of India. This dichotomy of experience is the crux of the melodrama in his films. From the point of view of the other Indians the refugees were an eyesore, a burden. When the nation was waking up to the Nehruvian dream of a new India, the anger, hatred and hopelessness of the refugees seemed melodramatic to the distanced onlooker. At the same time the artist has to depict the extreme experience of the refugee and melodrama is unavoidable Three of Ghatak‟s films- Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komol Gandhar and Subarnarekha stand out as films that directly address partition and the after effect. Nature plays an important role in them, either in absence or as presence. It is an image of the victim‟s yearning and place attachment, showing an innate bond that is not only biological but also psychological.