Indeed, Garbage is
an interesting film which evokes a lot of questions but last but not
least it´s presence as the only Indian film this year is also
symptomatic for the recently rather India-phobic attitude of this
festival, very few exceptions included. This inscrutable ignorance of
one of the most interesting film country in the world was only
interrupted in the last 10 years by rare masterpieces like Vilhir
(The Well, Generation 2010) by Umesh Vinayak Kolkarni and Pushpendra
Singh´s Lajwanti (Forum 2014)
Garbage by Q
(Qaushik Mukherjee), is a film which hardly will pass the outmoded
Indian censorship board for getting a theatrical distribution in
India. It is partly because of it´s revealing of graphic violence
and partly because of it´s open attack on hypocrisy of the
dominating Hindu-fundamentalism in contemporary India.
My relation with this film
is conflicted even though I still think one of his previous films
Gandhu was an important and fresh new voice in contemporary
Indian cinema. Q´s wish during his introduction that the audience
“shall suffer” under this “joyless and sad film” was for my
side fulfilled - at least for me. Since Pasolini´s Salò
o le 120 giornate di Sodoma, I
have not seen a film (commercial splatter excluded) which reveals so
much concision of human bodies, bodily fluids and torture. If
Pasolini´s film was reckoning with the Italian fascism, Garbage
refers obviously with the present violence in India, partly based on
it´s conflicting attitude towards sexuality supported by a right
wing and Hindu-fundamentalistic government. If a film wants to
provoke that is not necessarily a bad thing. Garbage
openly refers to contemporary India. The short living world press has
already forgotten horrible events like the genocide in Gujarat and
most recently a wave of raping cases. The most known among these
cases, the barbaric rape of a young woman in December 2012 changed
almost over night India´s rating as a relative safe tourist country
into the rate “critical”. For now the exposure of violent,
sadistic and masochistic acts in Q´s film is at least
understandable. How extreme and excessive one can find that, is
another field. But one question remains, the question if it is
necessary to shock or torture to approach a certain understanding or
even compassion for the victims of violence? Q rather follows the way
of Pasolini or Fassbinder in his bold language, while other talented
contemporaries from Q´s generation like Konkona Sensharma in her A
Death in the Gunj
(indeed a total different film on violence and gender identity in
India) seems to follow a path between the formal elegance of
Hitchcock and Mizoguchi or Pushpendra Singh with Lajwanti
whose way of cinema is between the minimalism or petry of Ozu,
Straub/Huillet, Renoir and Ford.
It
is true, Garbage
belongs to the diversity of contemporary Indian cinema. But as it is
the only Indian film shown this year selected by the so-called
biggest International Film festival that is quite a problem for me
because the vanity of this festival imposes that it´s selection is
representative for world cinema. This is of course the problem of the
festival and not the the problem at the film at all.
The
girl who is kept as a slave by the taxi driver (who is a Hindu
fundamentalist and a sexual perverse at the same time) is the perfect
mediator between the film and the audience. Her chains are visible.
Our chains only evident in the film´s bold language, it´s montage
and aggressive sound design. For both of us, the slave girl or the
audience – there is no way to escape from this film. If her
presence evokes empathy or is she just a fellow inmate, that is again
another question. My reason not to put Q in the same category like
Shekar Kapur and his horrible Bandit
Queen
or Nagisa Oshima´s awkward overrated Ai
no Korida
(The Realm of Senses) – both films are speculating only on the
sensationalism of the audience - is the access offered by the
character of this slave girl. We are captured with her – and she
can be read as an agent or even as an Alter
Ego
of Q himself. As conflicted my relation with Garbage is, I put him in
case of doubt rather in context with this despaired almost unbearable
but thoroughly honest film by Pasolini.
Despite
my discomfort with this film it belongs to the endless discussion of
contemporary cinema because it causes a lot of questions about
esthetics of cinema, what to and how to show explicit violence or
sexuality in cinema or not. The so-called “most political” film
festival in the world was here rather inconsequent if not cowardly.
They had the option to select Garbage
for the competition. But they shifted it instead to the the Panorama,
the most disputable and most shapeless section in the long history of
this festival. The Panorama is like a black hole – if good or bad
films, most of them disappear soon from the public memory. It is
symptomatic for the inconsequence of Kosslick´s populistic policy.
The irony is hiding a film like Garbage
in the Panorama is like a foreboding the film´s fate if it it will
be confronted with the equally dubiously institution called Central
Board of Indian Cinema.
Rüdiger
Tomczak
Screenings
Fri,
23.2, 20.15, Cubix 7
Sat,
24.2, 22.45, Cinestar 3
Sun,
25.2, 16.00, Zoo-Palast 2