| << Newer | Older >> |
on 2007/9/14 1:15:28
Yet another Bengali film with the bustling metropolis of Kolkata as the backdrop? But this one is based on a Malayalam novel set in a vastly different locale – a forlorn whistle-stop station in a Kerala village. In the city of teeming millions or in the desolate wilderness, both journey through the labyrinthine maze of a desolate woman’s mind.
Sethu’s celebrated work ‘Pandavapuram’ was a watershed in the annals of Malayalam literature. The dividing line between the real and the fantastic blurs in the work.
Transforming the story
It is not easy to translate that experience into the cinematic medium. That is where filmmaker Ashish Avikuntak has scored. Imbuing it with ‘contemporariness,’ he transforms the story and retells the tale retaining the kernel. ‘Nirakar Chhaya’ (Shadows Formless), the title of the film is by itself a pointer.
After spending over a decade making short films, why did Ashish choose a work that stood out for its strikingly different narrative pattern. “I read Pandavapuram in English in 1998. Pandavapuram stood out for its haunting and melancholic narrative...”
The Malayalam film based on the same work produced nearly two decades ago had made it amply clear that the story was not one that could be easily adapted on celluloid.
For Ashish, “the fact that it was an experiment with the narrative made it more exciting. The book dealt with the story of a woman and plays upon the psychosis of loss of power in a world controlled by men.”
“My film is a cinematic deconstruction of this story. I distilled the book and limited the film to three basic characters. This narrative malleability made it eminently suitable for a film,” he explains.
Nirakar Chhaya’ was screened at the Locarno Festival this year in the ‘Filmmakers of the Present’ Section, and the response from viewers, he says, dwelt on “the play with the narrative.”
Ashish wrote the script even before he got the permission from Sethu. “Even if Sethu did not give me the rights to make the film, at least it will be good exercise in script writing,” he says.
If scripting was time consuming, the film shaped up on the editing table where two editors and six versions of the film were handled for a year before ‘Shadows Formless’ acquired final form.
The liberty given by the author is clear when he refers to the Sethu as the “mentor” of the film. By locating the film in Kolkata, he has positioned the individual in an urban reality and yet portrayed the inner conflicts where isolation and loneliness work its way. Mandira Banerjee, Swati Tewari and Deepak Haldar essayed the roles.
Finance as always was a stumbling block and the director who is a researcher at Stanford University prefers to call it a “no budget film” considering that the seed money came from what he had saved from his scholarship.
Sethu’s take on ‘Nirakar Chhaya’
Film adaptations of literary works have often created rancour between the author and filmmaker. Sethu has a different take on the subject. He says, “There is no point in the writer demanding that the movie be a true and faithful adaptation. Wh en you migrate from one medium to another, it is obvious that certain changes may have to be made.”
Yet, “When Ashish approached me, I tried to discourage him This scepticism gave way to enthusiasm when it emerged that he had in mind an independent adaptation of the central theme of the novel. He wanted to place the theme in the present day context of the middle class in Kolkata. ”
Sethu adds: “‘Nirakar Chhaya’ is a kind of experimental work with a refreshingly new narrative style associated with avant garde films. I had tried to look at it as an independent work inspired by my book. What I wanted to examine was whether the movie could stand on its own, for an Indian filmgoer who has not read the novel.”
The comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content.
| Poster | Thread |
|---|
