Tabarana Kathe: Journey of pain!

Girish Kasarvalli’s film Tabarana Kathe, though made in the 80s, is still very relevant to our times. The film received Golden Globe award from the President in 1986. In fact, Kasarvalli has achieved this fete four times to four of his films, perhaps one of the very few directors to peak such heights. The film has been made available in DVD format recently and is a worthwhile watch.

Poornachandra Tejaswi

Director: Girish Kasarvalli

Tabarana Kathe is based on the short story by writer Poornachandra Tejaswi. It narrates the grueling journey of Tabara, the class four government employ, to claim his pension. However, at each stage there are far too many hurdles than poor Tabara can ever cross. In the bargain, as fate would have it, he loses his wife and his mental equilibrium as well.

Just the other day, a minister in the Karnataka government made reference to this film. He said that government officials must watch this film and make sure that common people do not end up like Tabara. One can effortlessly take home the undertones. The red-tapism which is an essential ingredient for corruption is practiced in government offices as a matter of routine. Not just the Tabaras, but even the highly civilised and educated lot also cannot easily crack such stonewalls without greasing the palms of powers that be! While the rich will have their way without any qualms of conscience, it is persons like Tabaras who have both to be wary of their conscience as well as their deprived plight.

The lead actor Charu Hasan as Tabara is a personification of typical common man. The masterly touch of the director is visible in every frame – leading actors and the camera in tandem.

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

The world before her: The fanatic and the modern of it!

It is rarely that a documentary gets widespread theatrical release in India. But, The world before her is that rare exception. The film, made in 2012, was released in India this year and rightly received critical acclaim. And why not? The film is a dispassionate account of two worlds existing in India. No, they are not India and Bharat. Neither are they rural and urban. They are the worlds of the fanatic and the modern. These two worlds are presented through the profiling of basically two women.

 Director: Nisha Pahuja

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Prachi Trivedi represents the fanatic. She is an animator at Durga Vahini, the women’s wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishat, actively involved in poisoning the minds of young girls. Ruhi Singh represents the modern. She is contesting the Miss India contest. It is interesting and hilarious at the same time how these two women and their ambitions are juxtaposed. For example, the final contest of Miss India event with all its glamour, make-up and glitter is montaged with girls at the Durga Vahini camp getting ready for the passing out ceremony and thereby getting ready to ‘defend the country’, ‘defend Hinduism’, even if it means to ‘kill somebody’.

The credit goes to the film maker (Nisha Pahuja) for not making any value judgements. She is happy just presenting the images creatively before the audience who can gage for themselves the hidden meanings behind these images. While Durga Vahini has given Prachi certain amount of power and authority (she is happy that girls in the camp are scared of her), the upbringing and the exposure to the modern world has helped Ruhi become ‘somebody’ in life, even if she does not make the final cut in the Miss India contest.

The documentary is indeed a credible venture allowing the audience to get a glimpse of these two worlds existing simultaneously. Not to forget, the smooth flow and excellent editing, coupled with soothing background score and non-interfering camera work have made the film both entertaining and educative.

- Melwyn Pinto SJ 

Finding Fanny: Journey within

Finding Fanny is an odd film amidst hundreds of Bollywood films that vie for attention every week. It is an off-beat, yet deeply sincere attempt to craft human search for love. The film falls in the genre of road movies. While on the road on a journey in search of a long-lost love, each of the five characters finds himself/herself, or rather they find their true destiny.

Director: Homi Adjania

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Each of the five characters that journey on the road to find Fanny, has a love story that has never been explored as yet. However, each of them is embroiled in a precarious situation that needs to be overcome. While those that can rise above their self-centredness end up happy, one of them, the most egocentric, disappears into oblivion. What lingers on with the audience is the ‘ideology’ of the film: even while life ends, love lasts forever. And this thought is put across in the narration as simply as possible. In fact, the film itself has a very easy take on life. You find the characters living life with very few of its complications.

The casting has been near perfect, with legendary Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia and Pankaj Kapoor giving the film a classic character. Deepika Padukone and Arjun Kapoor are the younger and romantic additions. One must say, in this film it is these five characters, more than anything else, who define the soul of the film. Of course, one must not forget the typical Goan-Portuguese style music and the scenic picturisation. The Goan backdrop adds natural flavour to the overall theme of the film. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Mala Aai Vyichya: The problem of surrogacy!

Surrogacy is not something uncommon these days. In fact, many women from Western countries come to third world countries seeking for surrogate mothers. India is quite a haven of surrogate mothers, according to some reports. The issue, however, has not been a theme of many films. But, Marathi film Mala Aai Vyichya addresses it quite effortlessly, although with an extra dose of melodrama.

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Director: Samruddhi Porey

The film gets to the issue straightaway. Here is a couple from abroad that employs Yashoda to be the surrogate mother. Yashoda, a single mother, agrees to earn some money to get her daughter’s leg operation done. But, things take a dramatic turn when the medical reports suggest that the surrogate child may be born with deformity. It is here that the foreign couple deserts Yashoda to fend for herself and the new-born. The destiny, though, wills otherwise. The child is born normal and Yashoda gets emotionally attached to the child. After many years, the couple comes back seeking for the child.

The film raises several issues, but evades the most important one – the ethical. When a child born of a surrogate mother, whose child is it anyway? The law is very clear: that the surrogate mother is just a facilitator and not the real mother. But, what if the surrogate mother develops an emotional bonding with the child in the womb? Bearing a child is not merely a physical activity; the whole person, with her feelings and emotions is involved in it. All the same, the film succeeds in raising many questions, even as it answers a few of them. Full marks to Urmila Kanitkar, the surrogate mother.

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

The Son: In the eyes of a forgiving father

Dardenne brothers (Jean-Pierre and Luc) are French-Belgian film directors who have come to limelight through a series of films that are unique in style and content. Their focus is to portray the problematic in society and bring about a healing of sorts. To this effect, they have directed several films, the protagonists of which are generally delinquents. However, Dardenne brothers do not miss to give a positive outlook at the end of each film. Not to forget, their films are popular as much for their content as style.

Dardenne Brothers

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Le Fils or The Son is one such sensitive film. It touches us for its simplicity. The film deals mostly with two characters. One, Francis Thorion is a delinquent. He has just come out of the jail, serving a sentence of 5 years for killing a child. He is now put under a professional carpenter Olivier as an apprentice. The irony is that it is Olivier’s son that Francis had killed. The film develops grimly, with no usual pleasantries being exchanged between the two, even as Olivier knows that Francis has killed his son. It is only when Francis gets to know that it is Olivier’s son that he had killed, that the film picks up pace, literally.

The beauty of the film is that it has very few distractions. In fact, there are very few dialogues as well. The hand-held camera that follows the characters is like a hound of heaven. The medium and close up shots ruling the roost throughout the film are so all-pervading that they can get on your nerves at times, unless you reconcile with the style of the directors. However, what touches, as usual, is the positive outlook of the film. Both the characters of Oliveir and Francis add substance to the film’s orientation.

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

God on Trial: Putting God to ‘test’

What if God were brought before the court of law for trial? Well, that would be quite a difficult as well as intriguing proposition. The charges levelled against God should be so mystified as much as they are unfathomable just like God Himself!

And that is what the Jews in the concentration camp in Auschwitz during the World War II think when they assemble a court to put God on trial. The charges against God or rather one grave charge is that God had not kept the original covenant. The film God on Trial (2008), seems weird in its content and yet rich in arguments.

Director: Andy de Emmony

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To those who are familiar with the Torah of Jews or the Bible, God chooses Jewish people as a chosen generation and makes a special covenant with them to that effect. However, the Jews in the concentration camp, well many of them, think that their present plight suggests that God has rescinded His covenant; that God has not been faithful to His covenant and hence has forsaken them and made them unjust victims of a blood-thirsty racist in the person of Hitler.

But there are also other voices among them who hold that God is present even in such dire straits and that certain suffering is necessary for purification and so on.

There does not seem to be a consensus when it comes to convicting God, but the ‘jury’ has to make a decision. That seems to be an important climatic and yet difficult part of the film and the story.

Some gems that are said during the trial are worth taking home: ‘Small fire will be put out by wind, but great fire only grows greater.’ ‘They may have taken everything, but let them not take your faith.’ ‘God is the only one which they cannot take away from you; keep your God, even if He were not to exist!’

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Gaddama: The broken maid

This Malayalam film Gaddama is a story that perhaps takes place in scores of housemaids who go to Gulf countries in search of greener pastures. Hundreds of women, especially from Kerala, land in the Arab world to earn a living for themselves and their family. In many cases, though, these women end up losing their physical and moral strength being exploited and tortured by the employers in many cases.

Director: Kamal

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Gaddama is one such story. The protagonist here is Aswathy who decides to go abroad after she loses her husband at a very young age. In an alien land things are not very smooth for her as she is subjected to untold miseries and trials. Feeling impossible to continue and realising that prolonging in the place would be fatal, she decides one day to flee only to face greater trials. Yet, as the film narrates, not all people are bad and not everything dark. She finds a helping hand in a few of her own country cousins who go out of their way to bring her out of her misery.

While the film may be a little melodramatic in its final product, the narrative could never be simpler in actuality. Umpteen cases get reported in the media of people being subjected to indescribable miseries in their work places within India and abroad. We can find a Gaddama in many of such unfortunate souls whose only fault is that they are born into poorer families. The film also raises important human rights issues of immigrants in foreign land. Every immigrant even as he/she battles home sickness in a foreign land, must also battle injustice and hostile work environment meted out by a condescending foreign employer. Kavya Madhavan as Aswathy the Gaddama is sensitive and does justice to the battered characterisation. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ