Films that make one want to write come far and few between. Rituparno Ghosh’s Dosar (“The Companion”) is the first in a long time. Shot entirely in black & white, it opens with Kaushik Chatterjee (Prasenjit) and his colleague-cum-lover Mita Roy checking out of their weekend retreat in a riverside resort. On their way back to Kolkata they meet with an accident. She dies on the spot while he is critically injured.Cut to a dingy hospital corridor where Kaushik’s wife Kaberi (Konkona Sensharma, brilliant) is trying to find the right expression to mask her anguish and display her indignation over her husband’s infidelity. She even tries (a little comically) hiding behind dark glasses and refuses to sign the hospital form as a mark of protest. Her friends from the theatre troupe where she works, Bobby and Brinda, are by her side and try to persuade her to be reasonable.
Next we see a very poignant slow motion shot of Mita’s body being taken away as her husband and little son look on. Kaberi goes home that night and sits behind the living room sofa crying by herself. Her neighbour drops in to console her, but primarily to find out details of the ‘affair’ and to inform her that the news was all over the television.
We see various people around Kaberi reacting in different ways to the disclosure of the affair and to Kaushik’s medical condition. We also see Kaberi alternating between being rude, unresponsive and grudgingly considerate. She tells her brother-in-law that she wants a divorce. But when she finds out that Kaushik has had an attack of breathlessness, she is besides herself with worry. Her mother tells her she must be patient and work things out. Kaushik’s mother, surprisingly, asks her to take her own decision and pledges her support to Kaberi.
Kaberi informs Kaushik that his lover is dead, quite unexpectedly, when his boss Mr. Sanyal and his wife are visiting at the hospital. Later, she calls up the boss’ wife to apologise. It is quite evident that she doesn’t know how to deal with the situation and relate to a bed-ridden husband whose infidelity she has stumbled upon under such bizarre circumstances. Nor does Kaushik know how to cope with his grief and try to pacify his angry wife at the same time.
Then, one day, Kaberi pays a visit to Mita’s husband. He keeps his eyes fixed on a football match on television, while she conducts an almost one-sided, awkward conversation. Mita’s son is sitting at the dining table in the background, covering his books. Mita’s husband gives Kaberi a book that has been found among Mita’s personal effects. Kaberi tells him her husband doesn’t read that author, but he points to Kaushik’s name written on the book in Mita’s handwriting. Kaberi keeps the small talk going and offers to help Mita’s husband recover her provident fund money. He doesn’t respond to this offer but gets up again and gives her a packet of condoms – his retort to her offer and another unpleasant residue of the ‘affair’.
Kaberi’s friends Bobby and Brinda are themselves in the midst of an extra-marital relationship. Their interaction forms the film’s sub-plot and the ups and downs they go through give us a measure of what may have happened if Mita had lived or what could have been the provocation behind the Mita-Kaushik affair. Brinda talks of a husband who’s uncaring and ocassionaly violent. But more than once, she likens Bobby to him. Bobby doesn’t like this comparison with his rival, but what Brinda’s comments suggest is that her husband was a different man when she decided to marry him and that Bobby may become a different person if she continues her relationship with him. It alludes to the ever-changing, constantly evolving nature of human relationships.
Meanwhile, Kaushik comes home and Kaberi continues with her overtly indifferent behaviour with him, but eventually gives in from time to time. Kaushik knows he must rebuild his bridges with his wife and tries asking her if she wants to know why he had the affair, while’s she’s giving him a sponge bath and opening up his bandages. She says she doesn’t because she isn’t sure if he’s capable of being entirely honest. The scene fades out and the moment is gone.
Mita’s husband gets a prostitute home and there is a violent scene where he tries venting his frustration and helplessness on her. His hand reaches for her throat and she slaps him hard before abusing him and walking off. He spends the rest of the day hovering outside Kaberi’s house and when she finally comes back in the evening, he confesses to her about the incident. He doesn’t know why he had to tell her of all people, but he thinks she would understand.
The film ends on a reconciliation of sorts. We all know that the relationship between Kaberi and Kaushik will never be the same again. But in a film that’s deliberately shot in black & white, the answers lie in the grey areas and Ghosh leaves a lot to our own interpretation. He shoots his characters in tight close-ups, exposing them to our scrutiny, but doesn’t pass any value judgements himself. And that I think is the greatest triumph of this brilliant film – the best I have seen from Ghosh.
Deepa Gumaste
7 comments:
Leaving interpretations to the viewer is pretty commendable. Yet, does Ghosh himself have an interpretation? What is the message that Ghosh wants to deliver?
I personally do not think one can render a story on celluloid without taking a stance. The stance may not be conspicous - certainly the mark of an accomplished film maker - but a stance there is.
Fact of the matter is the director's 'subtle' handling of the 'cause and effect' of the character's response, driven by his or her value system, significantly influences the viewer's interpretation. Officially speaking though, the viewer remains entitled to his or her own opinion through his or her 'independant' interpretation. Dont you think so? Clearly an attempt to 'manipulate' the thought process of the viewer, without appearing to do so?
This is especially the case when the film seeks to persuade viewers in an understated manner that acts of dishonesty, immorality, violence, illegality, undesirability, indeed any behavior we deem 'ungood', isn't so bad after all!
I hope to see Dosar but please recognize these thoughts aren't restricted to this film alone! I am talking of the genre of films that Dosar belongs to!
I may be wrong, but in Dosar, the filmmaker's position is that infidelity is a reality. It happens all around us. So it already exists out there. It has existed since time immemorial in every society on the planet although it may or may not have been discussed freely.
When I say that he doesn't take a position or hand us down a definite conclusion, I mean that he doesn't paint a particular character as black or white. He tells us that these are real people who have got themselves into this tangle. He doesn't get into the causes but focusses on the effects. When the film ends, we know that the characters may work out their compromises with each other, but their relationships will never be the same again. Each of them pays a price, in that sense, for the position they take -- whether they are the source of the problem or the 'victims'. What he does tell us is that such events leave lasting scars on people. I don't see it as a tacit approval of acts of infidelity.
As far as your take on dishonesty, immorality, violence, illegality, undesirability etc goes, i think the definitions of these terms are quite fluid and have different meanings for different people in different places. Let me give you an example. I showed my student a brilliant Iranian film called 'Leila'. It is about a couple in contemporary Tehran who come from well-to-do families and are madly in love with each other. Once their contentment with each other is established, the director introduces a problem. Leila finds out that she is unable to conceive. Her husband Reza is very supportive and tells her it doesn't matter because he is happy with her irrespective of whether they have children or not.
But Reza's mother is an upholder of tradition and she starts working on the couple and makes Leila feel terribly guilty about her inability to conceive. She tells Leila that Reza is her only son and if he doesn't have a son, their family name will not survive etc. Leila herself is a product of her society and her upbringing. Despite Reza's assurance, she succumbs to her mother-in-law's pressure and persuades Reza to take a second wife. Reza's father is livid and admonishes his son for listening to his mother's stupid advice. Eventually, the mother's will prevails and Reza starts meeting women. He insists that he will not marry without Leila's approval. He shows the woman he has finally liked to his wife, who gives her nod.
On the day of the marriage, Reza's father refuses to attend the ceremony and stays back at home with Leila. In the evening, the entire family returns home rejoicing the wedding while Leila is sitting all alone in the darkness of her house. She has already moved out of her own bedroom into another guest room in the house and has personally decorated the bedroom for the new bride. But when Reza and his bride finally close the door, Leila cannot bear to be in the house any longer and in the middle of the night she walks out and goes to her parents' house. Reza comes to get her the next morning, begging and pleading with her to go back with him. But Leila refuses. Reza is unable to be happy with his second wife, who eventually gets pregnant, and, ironically, has a baby girl. She realises that Reza doesn't like her and walks out leaving the baby with him. In the end, no one is happy and Reza's mother doesn't get her heir either.
Here is a film where every act of human violation is done under the garb of respectability. Leila is conditioned to think from her childhood that it is her duty to give a male child to her husband. So, no matter how much her husband tries to reassure her, she cannot let go of her guilt. Reza claims that he doesn't want to do anything without Leila's consent. But how does he ever imagine that his first wife will actually be happy if he takes a second, no matter what she says? But he too is the product of a society that allows men to take more than one wife and has perhaps seen them living together in harmony. Reza's father, who is the voice or reason, is muted, because his society doesn't give him the space or the freedom to express his liberal views. Reza's mother, who is the voice of orthodoxy and dogmatic tradition prevails.
On the face of it, Reza has Leila's consent. On the face of it, Reza's relationship with the other woman is legitimate because he has 'married' her. On the face of it, Leila has no real reason to walk out on her husband because she pushed him into the marriage in the first place. But human feelings and relationships cannot be categorised and compartmentalised so rigidly. What the director tells us is that when the will of society bears down on individuals, it can destroy them. To me, Reza's second marriage is as much an act of infidelity as Kaushik's affair in Dosar. Yet, in a conservative society like Iran, Leila cannot bear to live with her bigamous husband and walks out while in a relatively free society like India, Kaberi chooses to stay on with the same man. Where is the question of giving a tacit support to infidelity?
I am very interested in the motives of film makers and the methods they deploy to achieve these, regardless of whether I happen to be in agreement with their position or not.
How do you see attempts made by fim makers to influence the thought process of the viewer without wanting to appear to be doing so.
Their attempt at adjusting societal opinion from book value to current market value, and so often so successfully!
Is it possible that can make a film without holding a view on the subject?
And isn't film-making the most sophisticated form of propagating your opinion?
I think any creative expression inevitably brings in the artist's personal views, prejudices, biases, socio-political ideas etc. either consciously or sub-consciously.
When a filmmaker or a writer or a painter or a sculptor chooses to make a work on any particular subject, he is making a choice by rejecting hundreds of other options. The language, medium, setting, characters, camera angles, lighting, editing etc. may all appear random selections, but knowingly or unknowingly, an artist is asserting his or her individuality through the work.
Yes, film is an effective medium of propaganda. The filmmaker's skill lies in how well she or he uses the medium to present an idea. It is also a medium of social change. The connection with the audience is instant. The identification with the characters, setting, situations etc. is far more immediate than in literature, where one still needs to use one's imagination to recreate a scene. Which is why it is at once a very powerful and sometimes a dangerous medium. Which is why, although it is still largely considered a medium of mass entertainment, people take the impact of cinema rather seriously. Which is why there is such furore over the Da Vinci Code film, when there was none over the book which was a worldwide bestseller.
Talking of Da Vinci, what's wrong - the film or the furore?
One of my students asked me a similar question. But there are no straight answers. There is creative expression on the one hand and religious sentiments of a mass of people on the other. Personally, I am against organised religion and also against censorship. But I don't make the laws of the land and hence have to accept that both are a reality.
Till some time ago, I was firmly on the side of creative expression and believed that an artist has the absolute right to express himself or herself without inhibition. After the cartoon controversy, I was discussing the right to freedom of expression with a friend of mine. Something he said set me thinking and I had to acknowledge that there is no such thing as absolute freedom. I still believe that an artist has an absolute right to freedom of expression. But she/he cannot impose a work of art on an audience that is likely to get offended by it. Like I told my student, in my opinion, M F Husain has an absolute right to paint nude goddesses if he so wishes. But in a nation where goddesses are revered and peoples' religious sentiments are likely to be hurt, he must refrain from exhibiting his nudes in public. He has the freedom to either hang them in his bedroom or take them to places where people don't worship those goddesses and therefore are unlikely to get offended by his creative expression. Similarly, I don't think there is anything wrong with a book or film that challenges the very foundation of a particular religion like The Da Vinci Code apparently does. But if members of that religion find the book or film offensive, then the artist must be prepared for a ban. Deepa Mehta faced protests when when she tried filming 'Water' in Varanasi. She went and shot the film in Sri Lanka instead. The film has received rave reviews in Canada but there is a strong possibility that there may be violent protests in India if she tries to release it here. It's better she doesn't because she has no right to generate unrest and possible violence over a film that may hurt popular sentiment.
The other question here is whether an artist or a philosopher or a scientist or any thinker has the right to question or fight an exisiting social, political or religious order. Because every kind of change is bound to face resistance from sections of people. I think it is possible to question social, religious, political systems through cinema and all of Iranian Cinema is a glowing example of creative expression thriving in a closed society with state-sponsored censorship and strict limitations on subjects and treatment. But in the case of the Da Vinci Code, I don't see any lofty ideals -- either in the book or in the film (although I haven't seen the film). It's just a work of pulp fiction trying to rake in on the success of a mediocre book.
I don't know how I ended up on this page. But Deepa Gumaste, whoever you are, you write well, you are a good film critic, you are patient and reasonable, and you have thought through a lot of difficult issues. Great last para on Da Vinci Code too. But it does raise a question: who decides what ideals are lofty enough to justify offending people? Isn't the history of free expression replete with such turn-around points that make us keep going in circles of censorship? Can't we just set artists free to offend at will and the public free to be offended at will (in words only)? In the hope that at some point the two will see how they limit each other's freedom even without help from legislation or any other attempt at structure?
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