Childhood of 'Adolescence' And 'Trauma' through GOODBYE CHILDREN and YOUNG TOERLESS

Without much ado, let me tell you that the following two films seem to be beautiful examples on how childhood memories can shape the remaining life through certain events or experiences. Childhood could be as synonymous with the word 'trauma' as it is with 'adolescence'. The portrayal of this couldn't have been any better as far as the  films 'Goodbye Children' and 'Young Toerless' are concerned. Well, here's an overview of the two...

GOODBYE CHILDREN (1987)

The film Goodbye Children brought to my consciousness some disturbing realization of childhood memories. It made me think that almost all of us have at some point of time in our childhood, said or done something without much thought and has caused some irreversible consequences. These actions once done make us burn in shame and regret of having committed a thoughtless action but the damage cannot be undone. The film Goodbye Children, an autobiographical film, written and directed by Louis Malle, is a film about such a moment, about a quick, unthinking glance that may have cost four people their lives.

The film is one of the most personal and significant films of Louis Malle himself, who has based it on his childhood memory, the one etched very well in his memory. The disturbance I was overcome with after watching this film, made me think about how much pain Malle would have been for so many years where this memory lay within him, disturbing his inner peace. The story of the film takes place in 1943-44, in a Catholic boarding school in Nazi-occupied France.

Saddened to be returning to the monotony of boarding school, Julien's classes at the start of a new semester seems uneventful until Père Jean, the headmaster and priest, introduces three new pupils. One of them, Jean Bonnet, is the same age as Julien. Like the other students, Julien at first despises Bonnet, a socially awkward boy with a talent for arithmetic and playing the piano. But as audiences, three new students enrolled; make us realize immediately that they are Jews, disguised with new names and identities in an attempt to hide them from the Nazis. Julien Quentin obviously does not realize that Jean Bonnet and the other two boys are Jews and Julien does not quite understand all the complexity of human society involving racism involving Jews and other ethnic people of his country in Nazi-occupied France. He reflects the director’s (Louis Malle) childhood character. All Julien Quentin knows about in the film is that he likes one of the new boys, Jean Bonnet, and they become friends. The other students not only despise Jean Bonnet, but also remain aloof from him because of their habit of boycotting the ‘new’; as friendship involves ‘inclusion’ and what remains out of it gets categorized as ‘exclusion’.

So basically, Jean being introvert and others being hostile to this newcomer, Jean was left out of the friend circle. But then, Julien is not very popular, either. The two boys are a little dreamy and thoughtful, absorbed in themselves and their innocent imaginations, as thinking adolescents usually are. So this becomes a bridging factor between the two. But the innocent friendship and the close bond do not last for long. To bring this out, the story of the film plotted by Mr Malle is not filled with a lot of dramatic incidents. It is developed very subtly but causes great impact in the mind through the journey of the film. There feels no need for strong plotting and lots of dramatic incidents leading up to the big finale. Instead, we enter the daily lives of these boys. As an audience, we see the classroom routine, the air-raid drills, the way each teacher has his own way of dealing with problems of discipline and the way the beautiful bond of friendship develops between Julien and Jean.

More than anything else, we get a feeling for the atmosphere of the school and without our realization, we gradually become a part of that school life and become part of the events that go on unfolding themselves, very smoothly, very very gradually. But unfortunately for Julien, at his age and the level of his innocence vis-à-vis the development of events, he wouldn't understand how and when evil would strike and make him a mute spectator of things unfolding in front of him, changing everything forever. Julien and Jean play together, study together; they even look at dirty postcards together. One of the early spring days, they go exploring in a nearby forest for a treasure hunt game and darkness falls. They get lost and live through this adventure and become even closer friends. Few days later, Julien accidentally discovers that Jean Bonnet is not his friend’s real name. During Parent’s Day, when Julien’s mother comes to visit, he invites Jean to join them at lunch in a local restaurant, and they witness an anti-Semitic incident as a long-time local customer is singled out because he is Jewish. This becomes his first brush with the brutal racist reality that he was soon going to be a witness of again. But he failed to decipher the truth from this fact. That is about all the input that Julien receives, and it is hard to say exactly what he knows, or suspects, about Jean. But one fateful day, when the cold winds are shown swooping through the school during early spring days, suddenly we as audience anticipate some unfortunate event to befall these innocent kids, though we try hard to convince our conscious that everything will be okay and these two friends will sail through. Just then the biggest fears of us as audiences come true. The Nazis visit the school; Julien performs in one tragic second an action that will haunt him for the rest of his life. As his classroom is being searched, Julien unintentionally gives away Bonnet by looking in his direction. As the other two Jewish boys are hunted down, Julien encounters the person who denounced them, Joseph the kitchen hand. Trying to justify his betrayal in the face of Julien's mute disbelief, Joseph tells him not to act pious and that a war has befallen the country.

Malle has said the incident in ‘Goodbye Children’ does not exactly parallel what happened in real life, but the point must be the same: In an unthinking moment, action is taken that never can be undone. How an unintentional and innocent act of childhood can be the guilt of a lifetime. But the film goes beyond guilt in a very subtle way. It is shown that Julien only half realized the nature of the situation and it was too late. It isn’t as if Julien knew absolutely that Jean was Jewish. It has to do more with Julien possessing a lot of information that he had never comprehended, and when the Nazis came looking for hidden Jews, Julien suddenly realized what his information meant, which I feel was very unfortunate of Jean Bonnet as well as Julien of course. The moment in which he makes his tragic mistake is also, perhaps, the moment when he
comprehends for the first time the shocking fact of racism.

The film is based on events in the childhood of the director, Louis Malle who also lived in guilt for his entire lifetime due to an action committed out of innocence and unintentionally.


YOUNG TOERLESS (1966)

Young Toerless is a story directed by Volker Schloendorff based on mockery, stubbornness of the human society. One can clearly understand two of its most obvious reference points, World War II era Germany, and for the moral consent of people everywhere when confronted with violence, brutality and unspeakable cruelty. Schloendorff brings this out through the story of adolescents & their journey through adventures comprising of innocence, guilt & trauma. The story takes place at a boys' boarding school in Germany. The military discipline and routine of the schedule is matched only by the increasingly outrageous behavior of the
students, whenever they manage to free themselves of the school's supervision. The boys are bound to pin drop silence in class, and meals and bedtime are conducted with a sharp, orderly quality, as though it were some military drill. Afterhours, however, the boys drink, gamble and visit prostitutes. They also hide away in a secret room in the attic, which they've turned into a private den of decadence.

‘Young’ Thomas Toerless is a new student here. His sensitive temperament is at first stunned and offended by the loose, freewheeling attitudes of the other boys, their casual amorality and lack of boundaries. He doesn't withdraw from them though, instead he becomes observant. When Toerless's new friend Beineberg takes him to visit the local prostitute, who’s much older in age as compared to the two boys, Toerless quietly observes both Beineberg's patient seduction of the woman and the prostitute's dismissive, uncaring attitude. Throughout the scene, the prostitute insults both of the boys and mocks their superior attitudes. This is an initiation into the real or outside world for Toerless, who seems to have been sheltered by his kindly, smiling mother & has been brought up in an idealistic manner in his family back home.

But as the film moves ahead, we find out that he's even more stunned when he observes the misery of his fellow student Basini. When Basini is caught stealing from Beineberg, the moralistic Toerless is disgusted, and wants to immediately turn the boy over to the school's headmasters, so he can be expelled. However, Beineberg and his friend Reiting disagree; they see in Basini's compromised position a situation that they can take advantage of in many interesting ways without anyone knowing about it. The result is a game of torture and manipulation played out before Toerless's horrified and confused eyes. He becomes a witness to the trauma faced by Basini because he is in Reiting’s and Beineberg’s group. Reiting and Beineberg take control of the smaller, weaker boy, Basini, threatening him with exposure as a thief in order to maintain their control over him. They take turns raping him, they make him eat dirt and subjugate himself before them. They whip him, taunt him and slap him, spit on him. They strip him off all humanity. But eventually, deciding that they haven't taken it far enough yet, they hypnotize and torture him before brutally beating him. All of this plays out beneath the gaze of Toerless, who only rarely participates in these rituals, and only in the most minor and passive ways. Mostly, he simply watches, sitting nearby while Basini is assaulted and humiliated in horrible ways.

The whole thing holds a strange fascination for the innocent Toerless, whose baby face — like Basini's — nakedly expresses his unworldly nature. He has never experienced such brutality before, and he watches from an experimental reserve, like a scientist observing a specimen on a slide. The irony of Toerless's position is that he possesses a deeply ingrained moral sense, sensitivity to morality that causes him to be
shocked, in a very overpowering way, by the moral lapses of his fellow students. I somewhere relate
myself to him in this sense. And yet his moralist nature, just like his dislike to brutality, leads him not to turn in the offenders and end the torture, but to sit by idly, watching, attempting to understand how formerly ordinary young boys have been transformed into, on the one hand, inhuman torturers, and on the other, a dehumanized animal moaning or weeping before his tormentors. There is something chilly and distant in Toerless, something nasty, and in many ways he is a more frightening monster than either Reiting or Beineberg — his two friends are simply cruel and unthinking, the kind of brutish thugs who hold a mouse above a fire to watch it squirm, but Törless understands exactly what's going on and yet does nothing to stop it. The allegory here is of course blatantly obvious, so much so that it probably doesn't need to be spelled out. Toerless, like the German people during the Holocaust, sits silently by while people are tortured, while casual brutality becomes the norm. This is a film about the ugly fascination of violence, and the moral
justifications of people who go along with it and ignore violence and cruelty, while a group of people face traumatic treatments by the majority.

The macro world (Germans during World War II) and its traumatic situations for the minority are
reflected through the micro world (Young Toerless and his school mates) in this film. Toerless believes that he is a moral person, that he is distinct from those around him, but he never intervenes on behalf of Basini until it is too late, until he witnesses the truly horrible spectacle of the entire class tormenting the poor boy. Instead, he allows himself to exist apart from the violence, in an ivory tower from which he studies it as though reading from a textbook. Along the way, he is enlightened of his naïve notions about evil: he learns that evil is not a radical break with the world, but a natural condition of it. Toerless's confusion result from his belief that evil is separate from man, that if ever a man gives in to evil and brutality it is something tragic and horrifying and remarkable. Instead, he finds himself confronted with the utterly ordinary nature of true evil, which exists within "normal" people who are not marked in any special way by their behaviour.

Schlöndorff expands the thematic heaviness of this dark satire with the classical beauty of his images, which especially favour soulful close-ups of the young-looking Basini and Toerless. Their boyish faces reflect an innocence that is only superficial, and that they are more than that in the opposite. In one sequence, when Toerless gives in to the pressure to join in the tormenting of Basini, his smooth, innocent face is highlighted in a harsh, white light, making his ordinarily tranquil features seem sinister and distorted. He looks overexposed, as though radiating evil. His youthful face tells the story of this film, the story of how people, innocent as children of true evil and its nature, can allow horrifying deeds to be committed even as they watch. It also shows how 'like-minded' people, can through certain circumstances move in opposite directions. One becomes the oppressor and the other becomes the victim. Toerless in this film rejects both the masochism and sadism on display.


CONCLUSION:

To conclude, Goodbye Children and Young Toerless have been films based on children or young adolescents who have been witness to trauma in their most naïve and innocent way, the imprints of which stay on in their lives forever. Somewhere I strongly feel that these filmmakers somewhere are trying to hint towards the fact that just the way seeds of trauma gets sown in young minds, seeds of violent or evil tendencies also get sown in young minds, as these tendencies grow into the forests of crimes tolerated by a meek audience (classmates in both films, and spectators in real life) who do nothing to stop the evil done to a minority people or people who are different.

The World War I and II have affected these filmmakers in such a way that they reflect their societies of the past through the characters of children, drawn from life or fiction for their films. The films also have very beautifully brought out nuances of child behaviour vis-à-vis the coping of traumatic situation as well as reacting in a particular way. Children have been my favourite subjects of study, so somewhere the reason I chose to write on this subject was that I somewhere connected with the innocence of the characters in the films.

Apart from all this, I feel that European films like the Iranian films have their own impactful style of telling tales through the lives of little ones.

-------THANK YOU-------

Indian Cinema still haunted by the 1947 Partition?

       
       It is really interesting to study the different point of views drawn through cinema and literature when it comes to response to the traumatic events of the Partition of India (1947). The dark corners of unexplored human psyche makes a man do the unspeakable atrocities under the darkest circumstances, is but evident from the episode of the Partition which itself is a huge blot on the civilization that has been breathing for centuries and stopped momentarily during one such episode. Be it Indian cinema of the 1950's or of the 2000's, the 1947 Partition seems to resurface again and again. A little strain in the political scenario of our Sub-continent is just enough to trigger waves in the cinematic world of the Indian subcontinent (a self-contained eco-system in itself). 

The sub-continent tends to drift back to 1947 even if the issues would be the cause of some concurrent phenomena. Let's take this a little ahead and have a glance at a few memorable partition-based films through the years. Given below are some of the most unique and exceptional perspectives as films about the Partition and its aftermath effect down the line that perpetuates even today on both the sides.  

Tamas:
Govind Nihalani’s Tamas is a 1987 period television film based on the eve of India- Pakistan partition. Although this film was made in 1987, it still had the essence of the Partition as though it is being relived. It didn't have the evolved perspective that a next generation Indian would have. The director Govind Nihalani himself has his roots in Pakistan but his family migrated into the modern India during the Partition. It is obvious for him to feel nostalgic about his roots even if he might not have been there because the families like his who were uprooted still have the traumatic impact of this event. No wonder he made this film and that too a long one. The impact can still be seen as this film was made almost four decades later. The film shows how Sikhs and Hindus were outnumbered and brutally killed by the Muslim majority in the newly created Pakistan.  It also encased a real incident where the Sikh women (girls, widows, and old women) gave up their lives by jumping into a well when their men were all killed in a riot between the Sikhs and the Muslims. This was an episode picked up to show that it was a rampant practise to kill oneself if one’s husband died or got killed, so as to save oneself from being dishonoured by the men from other community.  

Also the film had scenes of families evacuating the towns they have lived in for generations. As an audience and although belonging to the present generation, the film sends me back into my childhood days where the elders of my family shared their strange memories about the partition.  It was as though as I was relating the events to what my great grandfather and others went through. Although massacre happened on both sides, the Indian cinema, by obvious means, reflects more the sufferings of Indians. The desecration of temples and other religious places, whether belonging to Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs, has been vividly depicted in the film. It follows a crescendo in terms of its narration, where the tension between communities increase following an incident and it is followed by riots and partition. The story encompasses the event of the Partition of two nations through the events that occur in a village where Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs lived in harmony for centuries until the time of Partition. It makes us feel sad about the Partition at first and later glad about it, when we see the horrors of communal violence. Tamas (darkness) truly depicts the darkness that befell the Indian Subcontinent in 1947, a dark chapter in the lives of two nations.  Tamas is one of my favourites when it comes to cinema dealing with the Indian partition. It makes me think of that part of my family which was forced to migrate from Karachi through Gujarat into Mumbai. Whenever I watch this film, I feel a longing to go and visit the places in Karachi where they stayed for years till the fateful year itself.


Earth:
Deepa Mehta’s 1947 Earth is an Indo-Canadian film which is an adaptation from the book Ice Candy Man. This film is a unique take as far as the point of view is concerned. All the partition films are either based on the point of view of a Hindu or Muslim or Sikh. But 1947 Earth is the first of its kind where the point of view of a young Parsi girl (a minority that was safe on both sides of the Partition) is the vision of the film. It lends a perspective which has given a very different shade to the stories of Partition. This part of cinema has dealt with the complexities involving love between communities, which was a taboo especially during those times and resulted in life-taking penalties. It shows the crush this young Parsi girl, Lenny, has on a Muslim ice-candy man and how her story revolves around him, her Ayah (a Hindu) and a few of her friends with whom the young girl spent some time of her day. Ayah’s group of friends eventually starts to fall apart as the stink of the Partition happening begins to spread in the air. Ayah’s lover a Muslim is a formidable opponent to the ice-candy man who himself is in love with Ayah and ensues the death of the masseur. This story brings out the extent of brutality a human could be capable of in times that challenge his very basic instinct and also his character. 

It also shows the fateful journey of once good friends turning foes with time as Partition fuels the communal fire between them. Deepa Mehta has made a masterpiece in the collections of partition films. She has handled the material of her film convincingly enough to give us a nostalgic feel about the partition and its times. Even if she didn’t choose to show the migration of people and chose to stay in the town within the story, the events within it conveyed the partition happening at a macro level followed by its effect at the micro level (just the way Govind Nihalani’s Tamas deals with the story in a village). But the nostalgic feel and the intense emotions of relations is strongly conveyed in Deepa Mehta’s Earth. Earth surpasses Tamas in this sense for me as a nostalgic experience on partition. But both the films have their unique identities in their own respect. Earth very beautifully conveyed how a civilization can turn a living hell when it is torn in two pieces or more, how its civilized people become the very monsters spreading the epidemic of massacre.   


Khamosh Paani:
A movie that put my heart in pain, Khamosh Paani is a 2003 French- German production. It is based in late 1970’s Charkhi village of Pakistan. The film deals with the subject of Islamism of Pakistan that began post the assassination of the then PM Zulfikar Bhutto at the hands of the then Military General of Pakistan, Zia ul Haq. The story is almost entirely based in the remote village of Charkhi near India-Pakistan border. Ayesha is a widow who looks after her teenage son Saleem with the pension of her husband and by teaching Quran to the village girls. Saleem has a love interest in the village girls’ school, Zubeida. Things begin to change when military dictatorship takes over in Pakistan and the village is frequented by Islamist extremists. Although opposed by the elders of the village, the Islamism of the village can’t be curtailed as youth in the village such as Saleem fall prey to Islamist extremists and their jihad agenda. The film explores the extent of brainwashing the youth under the pretext of Islam for jihad. Ayesha is visited by her long lost ‘Sikh’ brother when he comes to Charkhi in Pakistan to visit a local Gurudwara. 

This unearths the ‘Sikh’ past of Ayesha in front of the villagers and her son, who by now is an extremist himself. The Islamism converts Saleem into a fanatic to the extent that he forces his mother to prove her faith towards Islam in public, to which she refuses. In the end, the unfortunate Ayesha realises that even for the remaining life she will not be accepted by her community though her son is and hence she suicides. Strangely enough, Saleem has no impact of this event and moves on in life to become an Islamist extremist. The film clearly outlines the far-reaching consequences of the partition that perpetuate to fuel hatred between the two countries. The partition episode has been effectively used as a fodder to fuel Islamist extremism in modern Pakistan and to fulfil the ultra motives of terrorists under the name of Jihad.  Youth in Pakistan like Saleem are made to forget their possible Hindu or Sikh lineage and thus closing all doors of harmony that otherwise could have been possible. Other than these crucial point, what really pained me was the fact that innocent people like Ayesha who were unfortunately left behind during partition, were subjected to ‘Agniparikshas’ time and again but never accepted by the Muslim community in Pakistan till the very end. The film clearly outlines the attitude of the orthodox Muslim community that Pakistan lives in. Somewhere they are still stuck in the 1940’s.


Gadar:
Apart from being a fan of love stories woven around partition of India, what makes Anil Sharma’s Gadar: Ek prem katha (2001), one of my all time favourites is the soft loving Sikh family man turning the epic hero of the film rescuing his wife from Pakistan.  Again, this film as most of the partion films, deals with the complex subject of love between communities which was a taboo then. The Punjabi munda has a one-sided love to the Muslim elite girl, which he keeps to himself. The complex angle is worsened when the Punjabi munda marries her infront of a group of Sikh rioters who try to rape and kill the Muslim elite girl. Although this was solely meant to rescue her, eventually she falls for him and after marrying; have a child. She also is accepted by his community. The feathers of their settled life get unruffled when she comes across the news of her father becoming the PM of Pakistan. She gets the urge to meet her father but little does she know that he will not be allowing her return. In the process of remarrying his daughter in the Muslim community within Pakistan, the new PM tries his best to prove her husband in bad character that forcefully made her bear him a child. He also tries to get him killed along with his child and his friend when they come to Lahore to take his wife back. Eventually the obvious but the beautiful happens. The Sikh husband succeeds in taking his wife back home through some usual action scenes and her father finally accepting defeat. This film highlights how humans who look alike, feel alike, but belong to different religions can at times go to any lengths to prove their superiority. The PM father makes the Sikh husband convert to Islam and tries to humiliate him and his country but his plans backfire as the Sikh husband refuses to accept such inhuman treatment and decides not to convert. It also shows how painful was the impact of partition on the people who were uprooted, be it a Hindu or a Muslim or a Sikh. The PM father and his family tried their best to get their daughter married within Pakistan and did not even consider the fact of her being happily married with the Sikh husband. 

The Partition episode had painfully blinded and deafened them towards their daughter’s happiness. The interesting fact about this film is that it is loosely based on the life of Boota Singh, who in reality could not succeed in getting back his wife and ended up killing himself in Pakistan on being rejected by his wife Zainab. The film chose a happy ending probably because as people of the sub-continent, somewhere we still try to find solace in a happy ending implanted with the backdrop of the bloodbath called the Indian partition. I do wish that the life of Boota Singh would have been the way it has been portrayed in the film Gadar. The traumatic ending of a real story has been transformed into a happy one by cinema which is a way of make-believe for the people who wish the pain of the partition could be undone. 

Poor Boota Singh could not even get a proper grave (though it is said that the present generation in that village is trying to make a memorial of his for the symbol of love, but are getting tremendous opposition) and talking about him around that region is still a taboo; such is the extent of bitterness in Pakistan post partition. Meanwhile, the daughter, that Boota and Zainab brought to this world while they were in India, was adopted by a lawyer and currently is married of to someone in Africa. The daughter had witnessed her dad's suicide and also the rejection by her mom and her family in Pakistan post conversion.  


Garam Hava:
Garam Hava is a 1973 Hindi- Urdu film directed by M.S. Sathyu. The story is based on a Muslim family engaged in shoemaking business for generations in Agra. the story takes off just after the partition of India. This film showcases the circumstances that led to the migration of Muslims even after the partition episode was done with. The film shows how the social environment in certain areas of India had become hostile post partition towards the Muslims of India and as such they were cut off from the social circle of every kind. Despite all odds and relatives leaving one after another for Pakistan, the Mirzas lead by their head, Salim decide to stay back in Agra in the hope of social change and things getting back to normal as they were pre-partition. 

But circumstances become tougher and the business suffers to the extent that the Mirzas have to give away their ancestral house and move into a make-shift house. Salim’s son finds it difficult to get a job as a practioner of law. His only daughter slits her wrist and dies and being ditched by two of her lovers who migrate to Pakistan following the way of hostility in India post partition. This final jolt makes Salim take the stand of taking his family, the Mirzas, to Pakistan. But on the way he and his family see a crowd of students who Muslims, carrying a procession of peace demanding equal rights as others in the society. He decides to tells his wife to go back home and joins the march along with his only son. This leaves a positive not towards the end of the film. A note that social change has finally ensued that the bridge between the communities owing to the aftermath of the Partition is going to fade away gradually. Garam Hava is one of those cinemas that encompass the social environment of bitterness that the Partition had left in India and that it was eventually fading into the past, slowly and gradually.


Border:
J.P Dutta’s 1997 film Border is a favourite amongst Indians even to this date. It is still aired on television on national holidays like Republic or Independence Day. This film shows the attitude of both the countries towards each other during a war. As has always been in reality, even the film portrays Pakistan as an aggressor. This film is inspired by the 1971 India-Pakistan war where Bangladesh was freed. This kind if cinema pours light on the bitter fact of enmity between the two countries. The partition left both the countries with hatred for each other which eventually volatized out for India, though Pakistan still chooses to hold the bitterness of the partition. 

The dialogues, inspired by real war conversations, easily point out the fact that even though Indians choose to put the past of the partition behind, the Pakistanis choose to re-open old wounds. The film chooses clearly to stick to the facts that happened in Longewala, Rajasthan in 1971. Despite decades have gone by, people on the other side of the border continue to live in the past which not only keeps them behind in today’s world but also makes it easier for their politics to control them. The unfair tact used by Pakistani army during wars is again highlighted in this film. Border is one of my favourites as it keeps the facts as they are, for the most part of it. 


Pinjar:
Chandra Prakash Dwivedi’s 2003 Hindi film Pinjar is an adaptation of the Punjabi novel of the same name. It mainly showcases how women were the ones who suffered the most atrocities during and after Partition of India. The story revolves around a chirpy Hindu girl, Puro and her family living in a village which was to be a part of Pakistan post-Partition. But due to some family feud with a Muslim family, she is kidnapped by a Muslim youth, Rashid, from the latter and he defiles her and then releases her. On returning back home, poor Puro is told to go back as this would settle score between the two families. As she goes back, Rashid keeps her and eventually she learns that he loves her and repents for his hideous deed. She conceives out of the defiling and eventually marries him unwillingly. Meanwhile, the Partition ensues in. Puro’s family prepares for migration into India and in the process encounter a riot where Puro’s Hindu fiancé’s youngest sister is kidnapped by Muslim mob of men. Somehow Puro is able to rescue her and keep her hidden at her home. 

Rashid helps Puro take her to her brother (Puro’s fiancé) near the border and reunite them. Puro’s Hindu fiancé wishes her to come back with him to India as he decides to forget the past she has had to deal with. But brave Puro takes a stand and decides to stay back with Rashid as he by now becomes the world for her. She bids her family a last tearful farewell forever. The entire film is clearly woman-centric. It is something that I really appreciate. Not many of the Partition films have focused the event from a woman’s point of view. They have either had threads of events loosely bound or have had put them as episodes within the film, their theme being different. But Pinjar is one of those rare films that touch the soul of the pain that was Partition. the women suffered the most in the lot and were the ones who had to sacrifice the maximum. It was expected in a society of that kind for women to sacrifice. It was one the worst times for women. The cinema dealing with films like Pinjar highlight this fact.


      To conclude, the above seven films are the broad and distinct stories ever told on the silver screen. They are the face of cinema in response to the darkest events of our civilization, the partition of India. In decades to come, the deep wound of the Partition may heal. But the traumatic impact it has left on the psyche of the subcontinent will keep the subject an arena of endless debate and filming. There are many stories out there that are waiting to be heard to, since decades. These will not let the fire of partition die so easily, unless all the pain comes out through these.

-------THANK YOU-------

'SITA SINGS THE BLUES'............. Really??

It was the first time I came across American artist Nina Paley’s ‘Sita Sings the Blues’ when it was screened in one of our classes. This experience was quite different. I never had imagined that the Ramayana could be fused with and drawn parallel from a modern-day storyline from someone not having a similar cultural background as ours'. It is based on Nina’s personal life (for those of you who haven't see the animation movie). I found it surprisingly interesting as the depiction of the Hindu legend is quite American in nature. Nina has beautifully dealt with the subject of ‘women empowerment’ and ‘women emancipation’. Although an American Jew, Nina seems to have done some good research to arm her with the best material in order to make this animated film. Sarcasm, irony and mockery are the frequent elements pointing at the hypocrisy mankind lives in. But somewhere they also give away the fact how deeply wounded Nina is by her estranged marriage with her ex-husband Dave. 

Dave claims that Nina has been unfaithful to him, which she has been time and again vehemently denying and calling all of his claims as baseless. No wonder she chose this way of showcasing her broken marriage which began as pompous as the maiden voyage of Titanic and ended as disastrous as the Titanic’s sinking during her maiden voyage. It also makes us, or at least me, reflect on how our society still expects only the woman to sacrifice selflessly.

Nina seems to been deeply hurt by this reality of her husband abandoning her. The built up of the story through the Ramayana does show how different the social aspects of the society were then as compared to now, but it also shows the similarity in the human tendencies: a little gap of doubt kills a relation.

Music: Whenever Sita was portrayed as a singing performer in the film, through vector graphic animation; songs performed by the Jazz singer Annette Hanshaw lent the perfect vocals for creating those melancholy overtones.  

The songs also made me sympathise with what Nina has been going through or had been through in the past.

Another fact that caught my attention was that wherever bold and slick style of digitized animation software is used, there has been heavy use of rustic musical recordings, which ideally do not blend with the former. But here, this seems deliberate as it gives a subtle feeling of contrast between the past and the present. There has been a blending of the slick and bold style of digital animation software and the rustic musical recordings with the use of synchronized vocals, something that is new to me.

Animation: The three shadow puppets have portrayed the unimaginable complexity and contradictions; our human culture has reached, in a comical way pointing at the irony at places in the legend of the Ramayana. They also point at the fact how these complexities lead to misinterpretations and misunderstanding of history. They also break the monotony, which the film would otherwise have with only the past married to the present. It saves the animated film from being type casted, which draws parallels between past and present.

Another fact that took me by surprise was when it struck me the 3 shadowy puppets are derivatives of the contradiction-raising puppets of the ‘Chhaya Natak’ shadow theatre, which raise questions through discussion during the play.

Although I liked the film on the whole, there are aspects that are disturbing:

1. The portrayal of legendary respected figures in an inappropriate manner. (The enhanced body parts of Sita in the ‘American’ way.)

2. Use of inappropriate language by the 3 shadowy puppets is highly uncalled for. (Sita lived in a time where women had the right to choose their ‘Swayamvar’, and if not happy, they could move out of marriage according to the Vedas. It was Sita’s choice to stay faithful to Ram despite his suspicion on her and destiny did make him realize his folly though it was too late. Nina has no say whether Sita did the right thing, as it was Sita’s life and her choice. As legend says, Ram never accused Sita of unfaithfulness like Dave did to Nina.)

  

To Conclude:

Nina went overboard in venting her grief by humiliating those who belong to this culture. It’s not her fault as she has been brought up the American way and they are known to be notorious about hurting people time and again. There are strong reasons why many Hindus are against this film. The reason lies in the fact that the film raises many questions, answers of which are clear to Indians and may not be clear to rest of the world. Those who know Indian culture less may use this to interpret our culture rather than as a piece of entertainment. There are  many ways the film questions Ram on his perfection as God and human being: Did Sita’s fidelity matter? Yes it did, just the way it does in our times also. Was it correct on part of Ram to suspect Sita after her truth-test on fire? Ram and Sita knew each other very well from within. But since he was a king he could not afford people to question him for his sense of justice. So was his throne more important? No it wasn't, that’s why he left the throne without grief to be in the woods with his wife and brother. Hinduism advises to put duties above personal pleasures and relations. Was it right to make Sita suffer for Ram’s duties? Sita got the pain of separation but so did Ram. Ram had to sacrifice his lovely wife he got back after extreme efforts. Moreover, Sita was not helpless after the separation. She brought up her and Ram’s children in the best possible way. In a truly feminist state, women not only have the claims to rights but also the power and ability to uphold themselves. This may be tough for today’s feeble feminists like Nina to understand. Ram lost nothing but a ‘wife’... and a wife is everything according in a Hindu marriage. Ram’s separation with Sita was symbolic and he never married after that. For a king in India or abroad, it's important to have an heir. He knew he was losing that prospect as well. But Sita still sacrificed herself in the end… She was in a spiritual dilemma. She could not refuse her beloved Ram, when he requested her to come back. She could not go with him, as this could have otherwise initiated the practice of treating women as lesser gender. She rather chose to die to live up to her virtues. Sita’s sufferings have nothing to do with women rights, but Ram and Sita suffered because life is never easy for truthful people. That’s the reason they are worshipped as Gods. It’s highly unlikely to find such an ideal relation in today’s world so people tend to criticize the bygone for their own shortcomings. So, Sita and Ram both were great humans, while Nina had an estranged marriage so her reaction is understandable. But the way things were portrayed in a few sections of the film, was uncalled for. I suppose, we as Indians are responsible for this in a way as we don’t protect our own past or try to maintain it. 

My view may also generate the two halves the way Nina’s has. So, I have just put forth what I felt after watching this, though I’ll appreciate that attempt Nina had.

-------THANK YOU-------

Through Cinemascopic View

Well, I am dedicating this page  for sharing my experiences of the films watched. I would like this to be a platform for bouncing back opinions and leading a way towards healthy interaction. This blog is not meant to target any filmmaker, race, religion, gender, place of origin or any kind of classification whatsoever. 

It is simply dedicated to CINEPHILES like you and me.........who live life as though it were a film in itself and also watch films as though it were really live! :)

So feel free to join in the fun of sharing your vivid opinions about various films and let this be a common platform for all of us movie lovers :)

Moving ahead, why CINEMASCOPIC VIEW? I named this blog so, because CINEMASCOPE means: a cinematographic process in which special lenses are used to compress a wide image into standard frame and then expand it again during projection. It results in an image that is almost two and a half times as wide as it is high.

Hence, A DETAILED PICTURE ('through cinemascopic view') to what has been seen and perceived by the senses (metaphorically speaking ;)) 

Thank You! :)