Reenu S John Dr.P.Mary
Vidya Porselvi
Full
Time PhD Scholar Assistant
Professor
Department
of English Department of
English
Loyola
College
Loyola College
Chennai-600
034 Chennai-600 034
Abstract
Despite the remarkable studies that have come up on
Satyajit Ray’s films, the deep ecological focus that the films possess remain
as a relatively less studied area. Arguably this is the result of an impeccable
synthesis of a green morality with a strong cinematic agenda that attempts to
transgress the conventional notions of ecological literacy. The films polarise
notions ranging from ‘wilderness’ to the never-ending ‘play’ between culture and nature with a
powerful representative politics that contribute to the ecological footprints
in literature and cinema. The paper attempts to (re)read the films from an
ecocritical perspective focusing on the representation of nature and sustenance
in these cult Indian Movies that exercise a pastoral nostalgia that projects
human experiences which contradict and complement to the anthropocentric
mainstream dialectic. The manifestation of ‘Food Fetish’ and the representation
of natural environment with villages, rivers and forests are used to establish
a strong contemplation of the life condition and the inward spirit of the
characters. When art nurtures nature, the ecological aesthetics demands a
rethinking which is the need of the hour. Apart from adding to the academic
realm, the paper critiques how the cinematic representations play an important
role in creating a new aesthetic sensation which is intentionally cultural. The
thematic impulses of the films get nourished with multifarious agglomeration of
various natural and cultural environments that hold a powerful cinematic and ecological
insight.
Keywords: Synthesis, Wilderness, Green Morality, Ecological literacy,
Play, Ecocritical, Pastoral nostalgia, Mainstream dialectic, Ecological Insight.
Arguably
the study of the relationship between physical environment and literature acts
as the crux of ecocriticism. The paper attempts to re(read) the select films of
Satyajit Ray from an ecocritical perspective and evaluates how concepts such as
Deep ecology, Ecofeminism and Gustation are represented in these films. The
challenging notions of celluloid ecocriticism as put forth by environmentalists
such as Adrian J Ivakhiv polarises the director’s and character’s use of space
and time within the realms of anthropocentrism. The paper also advances with
similar notions and reflects the environmental aesthetics through the cinematic
discourse. Envisaging food onscreen possesses an agenda beyond responding to
the gustatory and representative conditions, it also manifests itself as a
thoughtful entity that marks the ethnic and spatial reality. Food onscreen
could convey us ideologies on the economic standard, ethnic identity,
situational idiosyncrasies, relationship strategies, social ladder, cultural
specificities and even psychological preoccupation. Hunger, gluttony, bare
tables and feasts have been common cinematic motifs that portrayed as how
appetite and its satiation are constructed onscreen.
Ray’s
Pather Panjali is an adaptation of
Bibhuthibhushan Bandopadhyay’s novel of the same name and forms the first film
of The Apu Trilogy. The film is set in a rural village of Bengal and the action
takes place in the first half of twentieth century. The film is acclaimed for
visualizing the power and aesthetics of Indian cinematic experience to the
World audience. However the film was also criticized for romanticizing India’s
poverty which was a grim reality to the world viewers. As epoch making Parallel
Cinema, his films were close to life and struggles of Bengali mass. Both these
films show strong influences of Italian Neorealism and De Sica’s influence over
Ray is obvious. In most of these films the central characters experience hunger
in one way or the other. Durga and Pishi look at the food items with hunger and
yearning. This ‘gaze’ is political and cinematic. This eternal appetite becomes
a metaphor that gets vindicated through the master’s lens.
Categorically
this hunger functions as one of the central experiences that contributes to the
thematic depth of the movie. The fruits that Durga steal from the neighborhoods
are gifted to Pishi. Shijobavu who
complaints about this act of Durga curses her for her thefts and thus
create a conflict among the viewer’s mind regarding the notions of right and
wrong.Ray dexterously places an array of emotions with the assistance of these
food metaphors and the actions merge to this situation. On one hand when
Sarvojaya scolds Durga for stealing fruits from the neighbor’s yard, on the
other hand she is forced by the grim reality to steal a coconut from the
neighbor. The bond between the characters is also substantiated through the way
in which they handle and oversee food. The food kept apart by Pishi for Durga,
the sweet gifted to Durga by her friend, the children who run behind the ice
candy man, the children playing in the rain, the raindrops falling on the
flowers, the tamarind fruit enjoyed by Durga and Appu have all specific
functions to perform within the realms of cinematic experience.The last scene
of the film evinces the villagers gifting the family, mangoes out of their
hospitality and love. Their longing to getback to Varanasi gives room to
certain shifts in the film that captures brilliant moments of cinematographic
excellence. Even though the characters are so close to nature, the scenic
beauty of the villages, rivers and the forest appear plane and hollow to them.
Thus the film evinces a number of instances where ecology is employed as a
powerful Signifier amidst various life stages of cultural and natural reality.
The
film Apur Sansar also portrays
ecology in a similar light. Here the poverty of the graduate is strikingly
remarkable for the advancement of the plot and hence the ecological metaphors
employed have a strong connection with the hunger of the protagonist who finds
it difficult to fill his instinctual hunger and spiritual quest. His friend who
buys him food invites him to a different turn of life. After the long walk and
good food the satisfaction that Appu experiences gives him courage to speak
about his longing to pen a novel. Situations turn topsy turvy and Appu is
forced to get married. He reluctantly takes his bride to his shabby apartment
and the camera focuses on the empty plates lying on the floor on the threshold.
The food that the bride makes for Appu serves as a metaphor of love. She feeds
him and works in the clumsy congested area which problematises the concept of
kitchen that shows their poor living condition and absence of raw materials as
well as cooking area. The poignant pictures of food displayed have a strategy
to convey. After Aparna’s death, their son is abandoned by Apu and he is also
forced to live under miserable life condition. The solitude and the pain
experienced by the child is conveyed through his interaction with nature and
animals. This again underscores the idea that the dissatisfaction experienced
by them is not an abstract feeling rather is a ubiquitous reality and social
experience.
Aparijito
is a sequel to Pather Panjali and it
chronicles Apu’s life from childhood to adolescence in college and is
instrumental in showing some of the intensely compassionate scenes. The
relationship between the mother and the son forms the crux thematic notion of
the film. The paper argues that the film attempts to show the bond with the aid
of ecological sensibility incessantly. The initial scene of the film that
portrays the pigeons pecking grains thrown by Harihar with temple bells in the
background is symbolic. Thus the first scene itself becomes instrumental in
portraying the inherent relationship in the universe between plants and animals.
Moreover the untimely death of Harihar is portrayed poignantly and the next
shot captures the pigeons flying over Varanasi’s buildings. Thus the frame
often focuses on the animal community and the scenes have a deep ecological
ideology that demands an interconnected and balanced relation between the human
world and natural world. The film exhibits recurrent conversations between the
mother and the son on food. Sarvojaya constantly asks Apu if he had food and Apu
lies to her about the peda and the
Bengali sweets that he consumed during the day. Amidst all the small happiness
of their daily life, poverty and hunger haunt them. Thus the ecological symbols
function as Polysemous Signifiers throughout the film. The film also shows
characters like beggars and priests who are also suffering from poverty.
Similar to Pather Panjali, here also
food and the desire for food function as a vehicle to express strong childhood
emotions and family dynamics. As Plato puts it in his The Republic “the first and greatest of necessities is food, which
is the condition of life and existence”, this necessity is employed as a weapon
to contribute to the visual culture by presenting the condition of life in its
ups and downs. The film can be read in a transcultural context as well. Ashani Sanket the 1973 Ray film can actually be placed along with Pather Panjali for it featues the evil
effects of second world war and the
great famine of 1943 on the Bengali villages.
Hunger and starvation form the thematic
concerns and it shows how the class and caste politics act on the verge of a
calamity. The green and tranquil village get collapsed with the onset of
manmade famine and the world war’s terrible effects. The rice shortage becomes
the biggest concern and surviving it becomes a challenge. The food shortage
becomes instrumental in creating certain compassionate relationships that
questions the social ladder of society. In both these films food functions as
the motivating factor and becomes a necessity, desire and destination. The
paper argues how Ray as a Filmmaker could show the various phases of life and
hunger being a reality of history demands itself to be visually captured and creatively
interpreted.
The film Charulata which is an adaptation of the novella Nastanirh functions as a contrast to the
Apu Trilogy by showing sumptuous food being served throughout the film. Food is
a system of communication, a body of images, a protocol of usages, situations
and behavior” (Counihan 29). Charulata
portrays characters suffering from dissatisfaction within different realms.
This discontent is placed along with the abundance of food metaphors suggesting
economical extravagance that contrasts with the mental disappointments and
familial indifference. Charulata, the intelligent yet dissatisfied wife leads a
monotonous life with her husband Bhupati who is an upper-class Bengali
intellectual. The space that she fits in is far away from the characters of Apu
Trilogy and Ray through his skillful craft shows this gap deftly. The film displays
instances where Charu serves food to Bhupati where she constantly ignores the
eyecontact and the conversations they have is mechanical. The very same
incident when portrayed in the film Apursansar
takes a different spin. The sense of belongingness that the couple experience
is conveyed through the scanty food which is served and shared between the
couple in a single plate. The same situation indicates the familial reality of
two households set in different cultural, political and economic states. The mise en scene differs and this
underscores the skill of Ray to convey a trivial everyday incident in two
different lights as two powerful cinematic experiences. The repressed and
buried bitter experience of poverty and hunger is reminded of by showing the extravagance
that addresses the memory and social past. The ‘Pleasure’ derived from this
remains as powerful everlasting quest in the minds. Thus the food metaphors
manifests ‘Voyeurism’ underscoring Freud’s notions. These can actually be seen
as initial attempts of food fixations that still pertains through the legacy of
a vast consumer culture. The films thus cater to the demands of popular culture
focusing on the hidden dreams of India’s mass. Here the episode of serving the
food is deliberately used so as the viewers could easily relate to this
everyday incident. The background of these two films further polarizes the
incident. Furthermore the crude and insensitivity of Charu’s sister in law, Manda
is shown through her eating habits where she is constantly found having food
all around the house which contrasts to Charu’s mannerly food habits. The kulfi
brought by Amal is denied by Charu which polarizes questions of social position
to sexual desire that later complicates their relation. The female presence in
the films with its constructed idiosyncratic transgressions also poses certain
questions. These Films that have won international recognition in various film
festival platforms for its concise and subtle account of the politics of
cinema, human desire and social problems illustrate female voices that
eventually fade through the perpetuated incident of death. This escapist
strategy adopted by all the female characters in the film poses questions of
female existence and deliberate silence that dominate the macho film
realizations. Despite the subtle and powerful ideas that the film attempts to
convey, the graceful suffering and sudden disappearance of female characters
feed onto the voyeuristic pleasures of the mass. This marginalization or
subsequent ‘invisibilisation’ of female voices and their presence around the
natural spaces also underlines the intricately interwoven relationship between
ecology and women in all these Ray films.
Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne
series which is considered as a milestone in Indian Cinema for merging fantasy
and comedy in Indian Cinema can also be read from a similar light. The film
become significant by standing apart from the hitherto mentioned Ray films with
a surrealistic plot. Gopinath Gyne or Goopy is the son of a poor grocer is sent
on an exile for his bad voice and Bagha for playing his drum badly. The
circumstances take them to the king of ghosts who is fascinated by their coarse
music and grants them three boons. The first boon is that they can get food and
clothes wherever they want by clapping their hands and they are also given the
boon to travel anywhere and to make people motionless. The story ends in a
happy note and the film became popular among children. Here Ray presents the
Food of Magic and hence there is abundance and variety. This was appealing to a
mass who had many desires in their heart among which sumptuous food on table
was a primary and significant one. The magic is thus sprinkled through the aid
of food. Being a grocer’s son the food he is used to was scarce and was meant
to satisfy the hunger but the food that he is exposed through magic is opulent
and princely. The viewers also find a momentary solace in these sumptuous meals
offered to them. The power associated with magic is used for getting something
impossible in the real world. The Bengali society had to encounter bitter
experiences of famine and the very sight of luxurious food was hence gratifying
to the audience.
When
analyzing the representation of environment onscreen what concerns the director
may not be the ecocritical implications rather the major concern would
naturally fall on the synthesis of thematic impressions and ecological
knowledge. In all these films the locale authentifies the plot and elevates the
deep ecological perspective that the films hold. The eco conscience of the
films caters to the spectator sensibilities at different levels. The camera
lens which is inherently a dominating construct have the power to master, colonize
and rationalize certain ‘images of ecology’. The selected films also underscore
certain ecological notions of urbanity and serenity critically.
The
paper attempts to strongly assert the fact that nature is not a passive object
of scrutiny and hence only contributes in substantiating the content. The
inevitability of food to humankind has travelled beyond the nuances of
necessity and have reached a platform where it functions as a persistent
symbolic device. Apart from acting as a powerful literary and filmic device it
sufficiently feeds onto the plot’s development by complementing and
contradicting the thematic impulses of the text. Contemporary Film Studies host
many schools of thought and often act as strong source for manifesting
ideologies on Post Structuralism, Postmodernism, Multiculturalism, Queer
Studies and Subaltern Studies. After the emergence of academic film studies,
films are treated as texts with strong Ideological Politics. Althusserian
Marxism, Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Metzian Semiotics and even Postmodern
Feminism becomes a part of films and its interpretations. It is at this
juncture that ecological film representations become significant by analyzing
the degree to which anthropocentrism acts in the film. The human mind was
always fascinated by moving images, the shades of colours, lights, shadows and
darkness. This fascination contributed to the art of Ray’s Filmography and the
urge for representation has found myriad forms of expression, assertion,
dissemination, communication and articulation of ecology. To sum up, it is at
this point that Ray films addresses the vantage point of cinephilia or passion
for cinema in general in an ecological context.
Bibliography
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of the Prison, 1995, Vintage Books, New York.
[4]Frederic
Jameson, The Political Unconscious:
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[5]Freud,
Sigmund, Three Essays on the Theory of
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