TOLLYGUNGE

Dekha
A metaphor on blindness
that turns into confusion
There are three systems that, according to David Bordwell, constitute a narrative film. These are (1) narrative logic definition of events, causal relations and parallelism between events, (2) the representation of time order, duration, repetition, and (3) the representation of space composition, orientation, etc. A film’s techniques serve as functional complements within these systems.

Today, however, we discover that, for off-mainstream cinema, the filmmaker often chooses to reverse this order. In this sequence of events, techniques, as brilliant in their craftsmanship as they are rich in imagination, tend to completely take over the narrative logic and the representations of time and space. Goutam Ghose’s much-hyped new film Dekha, is an ideal example of this new cinematic vision. Agreed, that what Bordwell says need not be sacrosanct for the filmmaker. Goddard has already done this time and again.

The filmmaker has every right to his expressive freedom to use the form, content and technique of cinema in whatever way he feels best articulates his point of view, or takes his argument forward. This, unfortunately, does not seem to work in Dekha, the first feature film produced by Rainbow Productions Limited, a noted television software company in Kolkata.

Dekha examines the state of blindness in more ways than in its purely physical sense. Shashi Bhushan (Soumitra Chatterjee), the aged protagonist of the film, has been blind for 17 years and is still trying to cope with a world that has slowly but surely chipped away his vision. "I look through Suman’s eyes now" he tells Sarama (Debasree Roy), the young tenant who lives in a section of his home with her ten-year-old son, Suman. Shashi Bhushan runs a dilapidated press once run by his mother (Sutapa Talukdar). Nostalgia prevents him from selling it away. Nostalgia stops him from surrendering to the temptation of giving up the sprawling home to the neighbourhood promoter. Yet, he is perpetually in a state of confusion and depression. His day is divided between listening to old songs on his gramophone and meditating on memories of his wife Reba (Roopa Ganguli) who sang beautifully but left him with their only child Sohini, to marry a German; of his mother singing away beautiful Tagore songs at a family get-together; of his experiences with the prostitutes he brought back home during a rather debauched past. He is intensely cynical, moody and rude by turns and there is no indication that this is linked to his loss of vision. The sole direct impact of his blind state is that he has given up on what he was once good at, writing poetry. Towards the film’s closure, we find him beginning to compose poems all over again.

The sub-text is comprised of Sarama, separated from her painter husband Nikhil (Anjan Dutta) and trying to cope with her single motherhood with the subtle help of Shashi bhushan who stops taking rent from her, the daughter of his teacher. When the three of them leave for the forest greens of North Bengal to stay for a while with Sarama’s parents, they befriend the genetically blind Gagan (Kamal Kanjilal) who has the rare gift of picking up bird-calls and of instantly taking on the strains of any song he hears. He is an orphan and is offered shelter by Sarama’s parents. They bring Gagan back with them to Kolkata to help him make a career in music. Sarama and Gagan drift into an affair though Sarama is also deeply attracted to Shashi bhushan. Reema (Indrani Haldar), who brings out a magazine of poetry, functions as a catalyst in reviving Shashi bhushan’s creative instincts. Does Sarama go back to her husband? Do they succeed in launching Gagan to a career in music? Does Shashi bhushan succumb to the pressures of the promoter (Biplab Chatterjee)? These questions are left open because Ghose has designedly left them unanswered. Goutam Ghose has written the story and dialogue alongwith Sunil Gangopadhyay. He has also scripted the film, written the music, done the cinematography in addition to directing the film. And this is where he has gone wrong. It is the cinematographer in him that has taken over the film completely, music coming a close second, with the dialogue and the direction going lower down in the hierarchy. Every visual frame of Dekha is a model lesson in modern cinematography minus the technical gizmos you often encounter in masala films. The remains the once-noted Aurora Film Studios in North Kolkata forms the setting for the house of Shashi bhushan, a virtual delight for a cinematogrrapher like Ghose. Manik Bhattacharya’s art direction gives him able support. Ghose captures the oblique rays of the sun intercut with the shadows of a speeding minibus falling across the floor of the house and the swinging bird-cage on the long balcony.

Black-and-White, muted and grained, also makes its appearance strongly felt in the flashbacks, all point-of-view shots from Shashi bhushan’s nostalgia. The lush, velvet greenery of the forests in North Bengal, cut into by the speeding landrover, the narrow by-lanes of Kolkata are frozen in cinematic time by Ghose. His brilliance with the camera is highlighted in the scenes where Shashi bhushan narrates his slow realisation of the narrowing of his vision, his overporing the Scotch when the prostitute comes over, the ghost-like halo and dual images of her face held in close-up are perhaps a first-time-ever in Indian cinema. There is also a scene captured almost totally in silhouette, of sensuous, dancing figures when Sarama goes to a discotheque with Nikhil.

Dekha will, no doubt, place Ghose quite high up in the shortlist of best cameramen. But in so doing, Ghose, the director has taken a strong beating. He lacks what his protagonist says glaucoma patient suffer from tunnel vision. The dialogue is overloaded with intellectual sermonising and political commentating that sadly, do not belong.

Interestingly, most of this oratory is achieved with generous swigs of scotch or rum. Those picturesque scenes of graceful dances by Roopa Ganguli and Sutapa Talukdar do not help in taking his argument further at all. The acting passes muster and no prizes to Soumitra Chatterjee this time round for his self-conscious portrayal as the blind Shashi bhushan. Indrani Haldar as Reema and Paran Bandopadhyay as Nibaran, both cameos, are outstanding.

Debasree tries to give her best but she seems to have taken a long sabbatical from smiles and good cheer. She wears a long face even in intimate scenes. In summing up, one cannot resist the temptation of borrowing from that great Bard, William Shakespeare, albeit in a totally different context. Love is blind and lovers cannot see the mistakes they themselves make.

Shoma A Chatterji