Reviews

GAJAGAMINI –A film in Hindi directed by M.F.Hussain

This month saw the release of a very different film titled Gajagamini the first film from M.F.Hussain who is the most important painter living in India and who is already celebrated his 84^th birthday.

It is an experimental film that is a woman's journey through mythology and history. Hussein deals with literary and religious aspects the philosophical, in his unique style - highly aesthetic and artistic. You can say it is a celebration of womanhood! The film is unusual and unique in many ways. - A film that seeks to convey the essence of Indian womanhood.

The word Gajagamini means ‘one who walks like an elephant’ that is a synonym for the beautiful damsel Gajagamini is the ultimate of female beauty – the ultimate of female existence in all standards of female manifestations. Here the filmmaker searches for this ultimate through different ages of human existence. In Gamini, there are two lovers -- one is young and the other is elderly. There is also a painter, a poet, and a scientist. All the characters are there -- some from the 17th century, others from five thousand years back like Kalidasa, and they meet. This film is about the way they try to visualize a woman. There is no time here. Here, you do not know what is fantasy and what is reality.

The characters who join in this search are the poet Kalidasa, the master artist Leo Nardo Davincci, the scientist C.V.Raman, the matinee idol of Indian film industry Sharukh Khan (played by Sharukh himself) and also none other than Kamdoe- the god for love. All of these men meet in their search and finds there own versions of Gajagamini, but none has seen nor represented her in full, As Davincci says I have represented Gajagamini in that mysterious smile of Monolisa, but only a fraction.

Gajagamini is thus theme of the film, the woman as form, as an icon. A metaphor.

The film is an extension of the genius of the artist M.F.Hussain, an extension of his paintings to celluloid. It starts in the black and white visual of Hussein painting in his very personal and unique strokes of brush on a big canvas. From his paintings emerge a female form 'Andurpur ki ek aurat, sar pe gatri, gode me bachcha, aur paun me ghungroo.' (A woman from Andurpur, with a bundle on her head, a child in her lap and ghungroos on her feet). And then she walks through space and time. This form travels through the different spaces and stories of the film dancing, and never showing her face to the camera. Towards the end of the film, we have different forms of Gajagamini merging together and moving away from the camera to dissolve into the skies. The answer comes to the question that who Gajagamini is thus; the question is one; but the answer is many’

The story line is not linear - it moves back and forth, in time and space -- and Gamin is the link. She plays several roles, which are reflections or manifestations of womanhood.

There are several episodes. One is in Benares, where some authors like Premchand and Nirmala, as also two or three other characters meet and talk of their own experiences. The lover, Kamdeo, comes down and changes into different forms and we follow them. He becomes a lawyer, a nawab and so on.

There are five women in this film -- like our legendary Panchkanya -- who shake up the equanimity of the heavenly Gods. Gamini is the metaphor of a woman who is Shakti, she passes through five different stages without facing the camera, and nobody knows who she is.

Says the director about his film ‘The power of woman and her identity is the message of my film. I portray the individuality of a woman, the way she is passing through time and space on her own terms. The essence of Indian culture is Shakti, the woman. That is what I am going to reflect in my film. Without really raising any issue. It is a purely poetic statement, the body language of a woman.’

The film really belongs to the genre of personal cinema. Hussein writing the script, story, and the theme song and designed the sets and the costumes -- it is almost like a one-man show.

The film is a celebration of colors, music, movement, and dance, true to the Indian tradition of art and aesthetics. But the dance and music are very different and experimental the choreography and physical movement of the dancers in this film that was modern and experimental and sill rooted on the Indian classical dance tradition. The film has liberated the dance from the Mudra system t the physicality and spatiality of the moving bodies. It has been lifted from the emotional expression and meanings associated to a realm of the aesthetics of movement and its pleasures, the beauty and sensuality of the moving body of the dancer touching the very essence of dancing. .The music that scored by the famous music director, Bhupen Hazarika, sometimes with lyrics and often purely instrumental is corollary and supplementary.

There are also songs in Sanskrit -- Kalidasa's -- and one in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore.

There will not be the usual song and dance routines that you see in Indian films. It is a very 'painterly' film in the sense that the sequences are like paintings

The film is purely a form, a structure; a structure of different forms in celebration reminding that the essence of Indian culture is celebration.

 This film is the culmination of Hussain's fascination for Madhuri Dixit! The whole film is for her.

‘AT THE SEASHORE’ a play performed by Bharatha. Directed by Prabhath based on the short story by O.V.Vijayan.

The Calicut University Campus theatre performed an adaptation of the very famous short story “at the seashore’ written by O.V.Vijayan, that searches the layers of meaning of the story as well as the possibilities of the medium of theatre, in an open air arena similar to that of the old Greek theatre. The director has used the empty space diversely and this innovative nature of open theatre helped to communicate better with the audience effectively. The control in using the stage as the Village Square, the railway station and the seashore and the narrative that balanced Vellayiappan’s intensely emotional present with his memories developed the action of the play. The simple stage setting and costumes that has a sense of reality was in tune with the stage language that evolved from the group activity The director Prabhat is a last year student of school of drama, Trichur

 PRITHVI THEATRE FESTIVAL

“Setting stage: 2000”-The Prithvi Theatre festival. Mumbai (Nov 15-Dec 5) had its accent on collaboration and interchange between Theatre groups – local,. national and foreign. The visiting companies were from the United States. United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy and south Africa.

Among the Indian productions Veenpani Chawalas “Adishakti” depicts “Ganapathi” as a myth of creation. Jatra thespian Chapel Baduri’s “Ekmukhi Sitala” propitiates the dreaded goddess to ward off the 64 varieties of pox. Mumbai”s Bhadrakali production retains four members of its original caste to stage “Vastraharan”, its play within the play, now close to its 4000th show.

Besides the play productions Films, workshops, play readings and seminars round of the package. Before the main show, children put up platform plays on the tiny apron fringing the entrance.

Among the visiting productions, Rene Migliaccio turned the vampire legend of Europe into physical and gestural theatre in Telluride Theatre company’s (the U.S)”Nosferattu”.based on Maruei’s famous silent film of the same name and Barm Striker’s “Dracula” as sources. The sisters Ellen and Mina become victims of the bloodsucker due to their uncle’s cupidity. Ellen is herself invaded by the evil, craves for blood, and is wracked by lust and bestiality before she dies. Mina retains her goodness and purity, decoys the vampire Nosferatus, keeps him her beside until the cock crow (daylight spells death to the monster). What you get is the universal lore of good and evil, of evil as possession.

The grisly tale was unfolded with devices that were more interesting than the telling. The slides projected on the cyclorama transported the audience to gaunt mountainsides, red crags, Christ bleeding on the cross against the wilderness, shadowy castles, and claustrophobic, cobwebby chambers. There were subtitles too, as in silent films. The score of music and the ambient sounds made a chilling medley. The interpretation was stylized, making the most of movement and gesture, with mask-like make up to highlight the mannered mode.

“Fish”(Big Telly Theatre Company, Ireland) exploded into another mood altogether.  It was comedy laced with pathos, mixing the real and the “possible real”, which breathes life giving fantasy into mundane existence. It was physical theatre at its most energetic. The actors pranced, romped, capered, cavorted, stilt walked…. Giving the audience a jolly good time. In the process, they easily and spontaneously, broke the barrier between spectator and actor, drawing every viewer into the ceremonies of wedding, circus and magic.

Common Ground Sign Dance Theatre offered two short plays, both about the aching need for human connection in the miasma of indifference, which shrouds us today. “Distant sisters” juxtaposes Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe and Mexican artist Frida Kahlo ordain to keep on doing their show in a timeless limbo until the global village achieves peace. The company has been developing a new art form to integrate deaf and hearing cultures – a language of mime, dance, sign and visual in which the deaf performers can find their own pitch instead of merely mimicking those who can hear. Hearing impaired Denise Armstrong played Marilynn, while Cuban born Isolate Avila made a flamboyant and striking Kahlo.) The blue music from the saxophone wound itself through the half along with booming splashes of Kohlo’s speech and song. Slides of Kahlo’s paintings loomed movingly over them as Marlin’s dream image became an ironic counterpart to her other face as the naïve, scared and trapped Norma Jeane Baker that she was in life.  However, the depiction robbed the characters of dignity, Monroe came through not waiflike, but as mentally retarded.

In an engaging mix of insouciance and desperation,” Borders and Freeways” had three men reading, ripping and tossing newspapers, crushing them to balls. Stuffing them into pockets, making little landscapes of fragments. With the newspaper as the choric symbol of disconnection and dissonance, the performers formed and dissolved into fluid visuals with absolute control and physical tautness. The words were few and part of the rhythm movement, as in the repeated rustle of “your gaze drops and slithers away from me like a snake in the grass”.

In the “Distant sisters” Kahlo exclaims, “Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing man has animals do not exhibit their sufferings on the stage”. The common Ground Sign Company seems to ask – when language fails, can instinct and imagination lead us towards meaning? Can sign and image help us to reconnect with fellow human beings?

However, the creative use of multi media stood out, as also the exploration of physical theatre, of gesture and movement, and minimalist use of the written test. The stamina and physical exuberance of the actors pointed to training and tradition in the theatre arts. Professionalism and discipline marked every aspect of production. But it also showed that these are not enough for satisfying theatre.

© 2000 Chandradasan ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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