Editing = Stripping Down = Confronting Loss = Rebirth

I am not going to include an image with this post because I believe, for once, the writing can stand on its own feet (does writing have two feet, or more?).

The last two weeks have been led at an unprecedented pace, perhaps the rhythm of editing itself has been pacing my life. I have nearly completed a fine edit of my documentary, a process which has taught me a great deal about writing, not just film editing. I now know (not in the way one knows what one has once read, but in a more internalised way) that a holistic text is as much about what is left out as it is a composition of what is included. The frame reigns supreme.

Then there has been the Bigpond Adelaide Film Festival 2009, free access to which (courtesy a media pass) has enabled me to not just watch the best and latest in Australian and overseas cinema, but also inhale an environment where I can sense a future. Or some semblance of a future. Yesterday, attending the Screenwriters' Fringe, I felt for the first time in a long time, that I am lucky to be in Adelaide. Premier Mike Rann, in his consummate cinema-speech, seemed to suggest that it is a hub of film activity in Australia. While the question of native audience indifference looms large over the fate of local films as well as the diasporic films that I'm examining for my PhD, I'm confident that conceptual scripts and lyrical editing can turn the tide.

Catharsis in the Dark

When I first watched Philippe Claudel's I've Loved You So Long in a small theatre by myself over the Christmas break, I thought it was the dark intimacy of the cinemascape, combined with thoughts of family and recent emotional turmoil that caused me to bawl. Also noteworthy are the now questionable facts that I rarely cry, or only do so when 'stuff' has accumulated. Although getting teary in public remains taboo, I'm wondering if the enclosed darkness of a cinema hall really constitutes a public place. For my tear glands of late, apparently not.

I cried again today while watching Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, even if it was only in sniffles. However, this time, I was watching with a good friend, in a larger space, after a surprisingly good birthday-week, and with no emotional baggage that I could put my finger on. Perhaps I was drawn to the film because a friend had pre-informed me of its visual make-up. What was this make-up? A combination of Gothic undertones, Indian patterns, African brights - all shot in a Monsoon Wedding style of home-videoesque closeups and amateur pans. I think I was seeking a visual connection of sorts, if not a catharsis. Maybe I have come to expect it everytime I enter that dark space because I have alloted these movie outings the space where I can acknowledge life-affirming details. Is this space inner or outer, public or private, well-lit or dark? What I do know is that it fuels my passion for both the real and reel world(s).

Textiles that Talk Back

Nigerian-British artist Yinka Shonibare stretches the skewed notions of cultural authenticity and class hegemony to the limit in his theory-as-performace art. Indonesian batik textiles, passed off as traditional African gear adorn headless Victorian figures. The patterns, the colours and the entire setting of the installation talk back to empire, as much as they comment on contemporary notions of race and ethnicity (that are in turn intersected, intertwined with class and gender). The visual presence of the figures is omnipotent, but their headlessness usurps them and lets the viewer stare and imagine without fear of rebuke. I am tempted to touch the fabrics, tactile things that they are. But I remain on the border - between the spaces of the maker and the tourist. The hyphen can be a thriving home for creativity and tenacity.

Audience(s)

The Golden Globe glory of Slumdog Millionaire seems to be raising questions regarding audiences (divided along national, religious, geographic, gender, class and countless other lines) all over again. I have been grappling with these questions regarding the Mehta trilogy, but the recent critical acclaim accrued to the Danny Boyle film, as well as Aravind Adiga's Booker Prize-winning novel The White Tiger is literally pushing the Indian sublatern into the global spotlight. A review from The Australian refers to the gory yet life-affirming movie as 'poverty porn' and blames shallow western audiences rather than filmmakers for their tastes. It also raises the point that the Mumbai-based film has not even been released in India yet, which reminds me of the time Mehta's Water was nominated for an Oscar without having officially being screened in the country of origin. Perhaps critics who write such reviews need to consider the perfectly valid proposition that such films are specifically tailored for the western liberal (and occasionally mainstream) viewers. Maybe I'll revise that statement and say that such films are more likely to appeal to the cosmopolitan viewer, whether in India or overseas. While city-dwellers in India may be aware of the existence of slums, it is largely peripheral to their privileged lives. In other words, the film might be as shocking to a section of Indian viewers as it is to the western viewer. The purpose, then, may not be to reach the slum-dwellers themselves, but shake the rest of us out of our consumerist oblivion. Will the so-called slumdogs object to their onscreen portrayal? David Stratton called in Dickensian, and I think he might be right. The poor are not without agency in this film, so why cast them as victims?

What's in a Voice?

I have to have one for my film as well as my dissertation, preferably the same for both. But, what is a 'voice', leave alone 'my voice'? Also, why is it important?

Maybe it is something akin to a personal style (both aesthetic and political). Perhaps, instead of thinking about all my influences separately, what I need is to think of them holistically. It is how I combine these threads and produce a pattern that transcends the individual colours and textures that will determine the nature of my voice.

Theoretically speaking, I need to stop swimming in the theory. Do I know enough to last once I'm out of the water? Probably, but the water is not going to disappear. It is always there to be used as an aid.

As to the importance of the voice, I know intuitively that it can make or break a movie or a book. This is not to say that texts should be read as per the intentions of the auteur, but more so that the voice will come through more strongly if it is a subtle yet all-encompassing presence.

Foretold Beginnings

e-motion = Emotion?

I was reading about humans in motion, and then I began to wonder if it was possible to conceptualise the post-globalisation flows of people as electronic movements. Why electronic? Because they are occurring at unprecedented levels, more rapid and widespread than at any other time in the course of human history. These flows are also greatly aided by advances in modern technology, be it means of transporting people physically from one place to another or imaginative conduits like the internet and satellite television. Hence the coinage of e-motion.

However, the question now arises - can e-motion encompass the brea(d)th of emotion that accompany this motion? This probably brings us to the age-old conflict between empirical facts and qualitative data, but need this relationship be divisive? I would like to think that science and art can mutually benefit from each other's company, be perfect complements. e-motion may not be equivalent to emotion, but it can certainly gain from the hues and textures of the latter concept. Similarly, emotion may appear devoid of rationale, and thereby gain from e-motion's exactitude. 

Re-imaging, Re-imagining

I have been wondering of late if I was 'meant' to be a writer, and if my recent foray into the world of filmmaking and cinema theory is a broadening of my creative interests, or if I'm simply losing focus. Then I began reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, and after only about twenty-five pages, have a new-found appreciation of writing for all kinds of artists, and of the image for all sorts of writers.

What I am doing these days is a lot of blogging, writing for my personal journal and thesis, but also creating a scrapbook of memories to include as the opening sequence in my documentary. I have so far shied away from images of myself in the film, but now realise that this is crucial to tell a story that is both honest and poetic. Such a re-imaging of the past in the present, then, is a re-imagining of the journey that me and others like me interviewed in the documentary have undertaken. Why do we need to re-image and re-imagine our private and collective stories? Perhaps the desired effect is a refraction of my/our experiences, a re-contextualisation rather than a de-territorialisation. The originary place of our socio-cultural milieu may be geographically removed, but it continues to be reinvented in the new spaces that our bodies and minds now inhabit.

Diaspora and Dispersal

I have nearly finished interviewing people for my documentary titled, I Journey Like a Paisley, and am now well on my way to editing it into a coherent piece of cinema that articulates the Indian-Australian experience through my individualised artistic lens. What have I learned from these interviews that is different from my academic research into diaspora theory and cultural practice? Is there a single, unequivocal message? Who is my audience? Why am I passionate about this story?

Perhaps what I have to acknowledge first and foremost is that it is indeed my own experience of living away from the land of my birth (an experience that is gradually acquiring diasporic undertones) which has fuelled my interest in diasporic narrative(s). But an old feeling tells me I was curious about diasporic writers, filmmakers and members of my extended family living abroad even when I was 'wholly Indian'. Why did the Deepa Mehtas and Mira Nairs always haunt my dreams and linger on the horizons of my imagination? A worshipper of Arundhati Roy's brand of writerly-activism in my teenage years, I was still more puzzled by the likes of Salman Rushdie, and continue to be fascinated by his amalgamation of recklessness and wisdom. Reading his book of essays called Imaginary Homelands while undertaking a third-year university course on world literature, I figured I was always drawn to the idea of home(s) away from home(s), probably destined to wander.

Wandering reminds me of a story my grandmother told me on my last trip to India. Always keeping me up-to-date on Sikh folklore, she said that once Guru Nanak went with one of his disciples to a village where the locals treated him indifferently. On his way out, he wished the villagers well, saying may they stay here and prosper. In the next village he visited, he was showered with respect and gratitude. This time, he wished the villagers left their abode and dispersed. The perplexed disciple was told that the latter set of villagers were good-at-heart, and hence it was better for the world if they wandered around and shared their spirit. The former village folk, on the contrary, were better off staying put and not polluting others' with their negativity.

And thus, I believe wandering spirits have a higher purpose. Sometimes, however, evidence of extremism or frozen cultural practices amongst those living in the diaspora (Indian and others) questions my faith in the liberalism of transnational populations. Aren't there bad apples everywhere though? While academia tell me that diasporic citizens are merely 'complex', one of my interviewees proclaims himself a 'confused desi'. What do I think/feel? The path becomes less muddled as time passes - choices are made both consciously and sub-consciously, accents are shed and acquired in context, clothes and jewellery learn to make adjustments. Hence, I have come to view the diasporic experience as an ongoing negotiation rather than a confusion of values or a complexity of heritage. It is a process of self-discovery, creative-expression and knowledge-sharing that is as enriching as enlightenment itself, provided you do not succumb to the pitfalls of nostalgia for the motherland, contempt for anything ostensibly foreign, or an uncritical attitude towards the economic and social advantages of the new society. This is my message of hope from the diaspora, but it is for everyone. The message is not new, but I/we have travelled far and wide to disperse it. The stories of our diasporic lives are a testament to this dispersal of humanity, of universal values, of cross-cultural sharing (not just understanding or co-existence).

Slumdog Millionaire (Dir. Danny Boyle)

There was a whole lot of Gen Y jargon occupying my headspace as I sat down to watch a preview session of this internationally-acclaimed co-production. My mind was a mish-mash of emotions and questions, more real that usual because I was on the brink of a decision. Am I, a tertiary-educated, well-travelled, career and family-oriented 20-something woman making the right choice(s)?

And then I was confronted by the image of a boy in the slums of Mumbai, covered in shit (there isn't a sophisticated way of putting it), and sprinting to get an autograph of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan. This image was disgusting and endearing at the same time and set the tone for the rest of the film - about rags and riches, money and love, God and death, tourist and native, class and power, violence and envy. There are countless movies of all genres in the market on the above themes, but what sets Slumdog Millionaire apart is its unabashed representation of the most gory details of poverty and its accompanying ills. Thus, my dilemmas began to dissipate in the grime and sheer reality of the streets of Mumbai. The director invited me to take up the point of view of his three musketeers - Salim, his brother Jamal, and Jamal's sweetheart Latika, so I accepted the invitation.

The part of the film I enjoyed the most was the orphaned brothers' adventures through India - riding on trains and hanging off the roof of one to steal a passenger's chappati through a window, inventing novel ways of making money by stealing shoes and embezzling foreign tourists at the Taj Mahal, working in local restaurants and re-filling old mineral water bottles. Needless to say, one had no choice but to surrender western notions of morality to empathise with the boys and applaud their ingenuity. However, morality of all kinds was put under a cloud when Salim, by then an adolescent, decided to have Latika to himself after rescuing her from the hands of her evil benefactor who he shot, and subsequently throwing his naive younger brother Jamal out of the hotel room where the trio were putting up. Betrayal of blood, of family! What do we do now? We stood by Jamal as his 18-year old self alternatively sat in a police officer's chair and the contestant's seat on India's 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' and flashed back to the confronting stories of his past. Did he win the coveted prize money? Was he even after the money? What about Latika? Why was he being questioned by a cop? What was his destiny?

I will deliberately leave the aforementioned questions unanswered so your curiosity bones are tickled and you have adequate motivation to go watch the film when it is officially released in Australia on 18 December. All I can say is that I liked it probably because it is a film of this generation - not overtly stylistic like a Deepa Mehta or Mira Nair work, not escapist like most of commercial Hollywood and Bollywood, and not pretentiously cerebral like some art cinema. Slumdog Millionaire is an in-your-face and on-your-skin kind of film - let it in or leave it out!