MIFF '98: A RETROSPECTIVE

MIFF ’98, the week-long Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation films ended on March 7. This week we review films of Patricio Guzman (Spain), Robert Cahen (France), Bert Haanstra (Holland), the packages from Oberhausen, from the film schools of Jerusalem and Pune which were screened to a packed auditorium at the Films Division. It would have been more appropriate to choose theatres with larger capacity for Retrospectives, the biggest draw in any festival.

Patricio Guzman’s socio-political films such as In The Name Of God and Chile, Obstinate Memories were thought provoking and very relevant to our times. For, as Guzman remarked, “Repression, in some form or the other, is happening all over the world.”

In The Name Of God focuses on the revolt in Chile against dictator Pinochet’s regime of the ’70s and the ’80s. General Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected Salvador Allende’s government in September 1973, grabbed power and unleashed a rule of terror. Indiscriminate arrests, imprisonments, disappearances and torture leading to insanity, rape and death were the order of the day. In this uprising, the church and the clergy led the people from the front, which is something never witnessed before with the possible exception of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s revolt against the aparthied government in South Africa.

The march for democracy led by the Solidarity Vicariate and the Popular Democratic Movement and the repeated attacks staged by the riot police on peaceful processionists, vibrantly come alive with effective juxtaposition of shots. Interviews with bishops and clergymen punctuate the horrifying events. Dr Alvares, an activist and organiser of medical aid to torture victims, provides graphic evidence of inhuman atrocities committed against women and men arrested for as simple a crime as street demonstrations. “Torture exists in Chile, justice remains silent. Justice is blind and deaf,” chant the protesters. “For the caged bird, for the fish in the bowl, for the grass trampled, for the friend in the jail,” goes the marching song, with accusing fingers pointed at DINA, the secret police headquarters. Relentlessly the people of Chile fight the dictator for their democracy.

In his latest film Chile, Obstinate Memories, made last year, Guzman travels down memory lane and talks about the making of his lengthy and most acclaimed film, the Battle Of Chile. This was on the military coup led by General Pinochet to overthrow Allende. He relives the bomb attack on the presidential palace, La Monde, and the shooting down of President Allende and remembers how the National Stadium was turned into a prison for thousands of warring youth. Guzman himself was under arrest at the stadium briefly before he slipped out of the country. The exposed film rolls were smuggled out to Sweden by his octogenarian uncle. The last sequence of the film is heart rending as university students who were shown The Battle of Chile, react in anger, cry unabashedly in anguish and swear that they will never ever allow such incidents to be repeated in Chile. Unfortunately, Battle Of Chile could not be screened at MIFF as the print did not arrive from an Australian festival on time.

The Southern Cross, a film on the pagan rites of the natives of several Latin American countries and the influence of ‘invading’ Christianity, was another poignant documentary screened at the festival.

Robert Cahen is a familiar name in the realm of experimental videos. Presenting his films Cahen confessed that his background as a musician and the experience he had gained working with a French television company helped him in his later years when he began experimenting with images and sound at an abstract level. His manipulation of the electronic media and computers creates a surreal atmosphere that ensures that his films have a mesmeric impact. His obsession with open space, landscapes and nature is all pervasive in his films. He enjoys the freedom that the video medium provides in terms of endless possibilities. Music specially scored to suit his visuals, is the other highlight of his films which hardly have any dialogue. All of Cahen’s films are very personal and poetically artistic. He is forever experimenting with content and form. Cahen said he makes films in every country that invited him to screen his films. Perhaps we can now expect him to make a film on and in India.

MIFF screened select films of Bert Haanstra, the most celebrated maestro from Holland. Glass, an all-time classic which won the Oscar in 1958, was the top draw. It was a tribute to the art of glass blowing. Breathtaking visuals combined with superb music makes for a memorable film.

His other film Zoo captured animals and birds at their candid best. It also captured the behaviour of the visitors to the zoo. The juxtaposition of the expressions and gestures of animals and that of humans makes for an absolute laugh riot.

An 80-minute film on Water, the life-giver, was another enchanting film on view.

The two packages of student films from Jerusalem and the FTII, Pune, provided a dekko of young minds at work. While students of Jerusalem seem to enjoy better technical and financial facilities, their Indian counterparts have to make good with shoe-string budgets and poor infrastructure. These films dealt with the life of ordinary people and were liberally laced with humour.

Among the Israeli films, In Good Hands and The Price Is Right were notable. The first one deals with a fugitive on the run who tries to bully twin sisters living in a remote cabin and is trapped into marrying the mentally retarded sister.

The Price Is Right was about two youngsters who work in a store and dream of luxury and love as they fumble through life.

Among the Indian student films on view were Hypnothesis by Rajat Kapoor and The Rebel made by Jayshree. Hypnothesis was a hilarious film about four youngsters who want to barge into the world of crime to make a fast buck and end up in knots. The Rebel was more humane than humourous revolving around a runaway boy who rediscovers his mother’s love. Let’s hope private TV channels will come forward to give such outstanding films some much needed exposure.

Anela Harrdt, former director of the Oberhausen festival, presented an absorbing package of award winning films spanning four decades. They were a mixed bag of experimental and activist films, animation and abstract work. Some of them were vintage stuff.

Closer home, Satya, a film by Ellen Bruno of the USA, on the atrocities of Chinese authorities in Tibet against the Tibetan monks to quell a rebellion, was very moving. The film highlighted the sad plight of some of the Buddhist nuns who were arrested, stripped and tortured to get them to reveal the names of the men behind the revolt to free Tibet. Since the Chinese occupied independent Tibet in 1950, more than one million people have been tortured to death among them several Buddhist nuns for their participation in the demonstration against Chinese occupation. Perhaps the scene hasn’t changed much behind the bamboo curtain drawn around Tibet. A stylised visual treatment added to the impact of the narrative.

MIFF ’98 also paid a rich tribute to one of the pioneering Indians in experimental films, Promod Pati. In the ’70s when Films Division, the only institution for visual media, was humming with activity, Promod Pati carved a niche for himself through his various experiments with the film technique. The film Abid featuring Abid Surti and his art, was hailed as an outstanding experimentation in the pixilation method. It won laurels and awards in India and abroad. Pati’s one-minute short animation films, Man And His World, Trip, Wives And Waves were equally acclaimed. His colleagues who worked with him in and outside Films Division still fondly remember Promod Pati who died of cancer at the prime of his creativity.

It was humanly impossible to catch up with all the good films presented during the week-long festival. I missed out on films of Studio-D, the women’s studio of the National Film Board, Canada, which featured a tribute to Katheleen Shannon. Bankim Kapadia, the Director of MIFF ’98, and his team deserve to be appreciated for bringing us such a rich variety of films.