At the first sight,
Mayurakshi appears to me as a very sober film. But finally as
the film proceeds, the surface, the first impression competes with
the thoughts and emotion the film will evoke. One of the basic
abilities of cinema is to confront us with the material reality of
our world (in this case as well the time we live in) it can
mesmerize, move or scare us not so much in what its images present
but in what they evoke in us. These emotions of grief, sorrow or fear
are often feelings often hidden in our every day routine.
The narration of
Mayurakshi (even though we know that every narration in a
fiction film is modified, invented or sometimes even forced) does not
appear as a told story but as a story which literally arise from
certain defined situations. Aryanil is a middle aged man who arrives
in Kolkata from Chicago where he lives and works. He returns to his
native city for a few days to visit his old father Sushovan.
Sushovan, once a brilliant professor for history, is now suffering
under a beginning dementia and other symptoms of mental and
physical decay typically for his age..
Aryanil is already
divorced twice and has a teenage son who studies abroad. If he is not
with his old and fragile father he spends some time with his cousin
or a Sahana, a woman of his age, who is a close friend since
childhood.
At the beginning the film
deals a lot with the measurable things of our modern time, airports,
cars, the accurate book keeping recorded in the computer by the house
keeper,, the precise technology of the medical instruments which
analyze the physical condition of Sushovan and finally the precision
of the filmmaker´s instruments for creating images and sounds itself
are slightly tangible. A counter current of this very sober and
rational aspect arises from Aryanil´s unsteadiness, his doubts, his
failures and finally his helplessness towards the decay of his
father. There is the wealth and the order of a middle class household
on the surface and the small hardly perceptible ruptures underneath.
The film does not only
present images of people things and places in the here and now but
also memories of lives and stories which are going to disappear from
human memories which depend on mortal bodies. And these human
memories are depending on a living and mortal human body.
As the film proceeds
beside the presentation of the characters lives, there are slight
shadows, ideas how their life could have been otherwise if they had
made different decisions. Aryanil, alienated and disconnected with
his native city and whose life is stagnating is confronted with both:
his failures but as well with the chances, the options he missed or
abandoned.
There is a small, but
unforgettable moment. Aryanil spends an afternoon with his childhood
friend Sahana. They are in the (her?) bedroom and share a cigarette.
There is a deep intimacy between them but without any obvious erotic
attraction. He rests with his head on her lap and dozes off. When she
asks him:”Did you just fall asleep”, she sounds rather slightly
irritated than shocked. In a few seconds this scene reveals both: a
closeness between them in every day activities but also (whatever
they went through in their history and if there was once a kind of
amorousness between them or not) the certainty that they will never
be a couple.
From now on the seeming
soberness of the film will be undercut by fragments of longings,
emotions of grief and losses. If they are hidden in this film or
evoked in me or both, I do not know.
Another example is
Soumitra Chatterjee´s performance as Sushovan. One can feel both
while watching the performance of this great actor who is almost
something like a living legend: the professional virtuosity of an
actor with more than 50 years acting experience but as well (and what
his performance evokes in me), a heartbreaking embodiment of an old
man at the end of his life who faces decay and loneliness. How
Chatterjee felt playing a character of about his own age, I do not
know.
Like phantom images behind
the visible images presented in this film, a different film more rich
and more moving arises as mysterious like the formation of organic
life out of dead matter.
Mayurakshi the film
title refers to a woman who was once (if I am not mistaken) a student
of Sushovan. The history professor was very fond of her and dreamt of
marrying her with his son Aryanil who refused this proposal.
Sushovan´s wish to see her again urges Aryanil to look for her. When
he finds a very close track to her whereabouts, he finally abandons
his search and tells his father a macabre lie. Mayurakshi soon will
disappear with Sushovan´s decay and inevitable death like this
manifestation of a dear childhood memory embodied by the sled called
Rosebud in Orson Welles´ Citizen Kane. This chapter of the
film is almost as sad as when we see someone dying and there is
nothing we can do about.
The film ends like it
began, at the aiport, one of the most sober, impersonal and anonym
places I can imagine. Of all the things, the strongest emotion
displayed in this film takes place here: Suddenly while waiting for
the return flight, Aryanil begins to cry, a sudden emotion where he
has no control over it anymore. Another passenger asks him if he is
alright but soon he goes back to his seat and again the whole airport
is an anonymous place and Aryanil´s loneliness and forlornness
seems even increasing.
Through the windows of the
plane we see a beautiful light which breaks its way through heavy
clouds. Aryanil is now only a passenger amongst other and with him we
leave the fictive world of this film.
The film has as well a
very unique soundtrack. Sounds (like the obligatory street sound from
an Indian big city) and the music are subdued and restraint like the
very economic display of emotion and drama. Prasenjit Chatterjee,
Indrani Haldar and most of the other actors remind me in their acting
rather in the more minimalistic performances in the films by Ozu,
Dreyer of Hou Hsiao Hsien.
But when I watched the
film a second time, it was of all things especially this suppression
of emotion and drama that evoked so much melancholy in me.
At the end, Aryanil does
after the events of his short but intense journey the same what we do
after just having watched an intense film which appears in my memory
much less sober like at my first impressions. He reflects about his
experiences in his native city which is not his home anymore and what
they evoked in him. Like us he just begins to deal with the emotional
impact this journey had on him, this film had on us.
Mayurakshi by Atanu
Ghosh is not only another impressing example of the shamefully
neglected world of Indian cinema outside of Bollywood, it proofs once
more that India belongs to the most sophisticated film countries of
our time.
My journey with Indian
contemporary cinema began 14 years ago when I discovered for myself
the wonderful films by Aparna Sen and there is no end of this journey
in sight. Mayurakshi is as well another example how much we can learn
from Indian cinema about the meaning of cinema but as well why a
future without cinema is impossible.
Rüdiger Tomczak
