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MRINAL SEN
(May 14, 1923 - )
By Gopalan Mullik
Mrinal Sens Cinema has clearly three phases in his filmmaking life, each change
occurring after an intense phase of deep introspection. Each of these transformations
involved distinct changes in the areas of film content, narrative patterns, and
filmmaking techniques of his cinema.
(It was inspired by his personally witnessing the incident of a dead child falling from
his father's hands and being lost in the jostling crowd at Nimtolla ghat during the
cremation of the poet). Punascha (1961) is the story of tensions that develop in
relationships when a woman has to go out for work for the first time. In Pratinidhi
(1964), Rama, a widow with a 5 yr. old son Tutul, falls in love with Niren and marries
him but Tutul refuses to accept him. Rama starts suffering from a middle class guilt
complex towards her first husband and his child. Niren is also never comfortable with
Tutul and grows increasingly impatient with Rama. All these tensions bred by the
deep rooted prejudices against widow remarriage - ultimately forces Rama to commit
suicide. There is a scene after Rama's suicide that Sen remembers fondly which is a
different take on a similar scene in Apur Sansar (1959) where Rama's first
husband's brother comes to Niren to give the news. As he knocks on the door and it is
opened, Niren only utters a single monosyllable ''Kokhon?'' (When?). As the brother
starts replying, the camera focuses on Tutul who listens to the conversation. Later
while editing, Sen found the piece too short for impact. It struck him that if he
replayed the same shot again and again, he might get the desired effect. Thus was
born the first freeze shot of Bengali cinema! (DM, 1995, p. 39-40.)
As can be seen during all these years, one of his main concerns was to take a
humanistic look at the tragedies bred by deep-rooted mental prejudices of the society.
During this phase of narrative story-telling, his filmmaking style, including
camerawork, sound, and editing, generally followed the Hollywood pattern.
representatives of their class. This necessitated a shift from delving deeper into
individual psychology to that of exploring class conflict, the classes themselves
being products of history and antagonistic to each other. (DM, 1995, p. 41.). His
characters now become types and his films more overt. This necessitated a shift
in the narrative pattern as well as filmmaking techniques of his films. Without a doubt
this was the most intense phase of political filmmaking of his life.
Sen thought he had found the required form for this phase when he saw Truffaut's
400 Blows (1959) and Jules et Jim (1961) at a film society screening in Bombay in
January '65. New Wave's open-ended, often non-linear narratives, together with
their open defiance of Hollywood aesthetics suited his purpose of challenging the
prevailing conventional and bourgeois aesthetics of Indian cinema. He also
adopted the agit-prop mode of filmmaking prevalent in Soviet cinema that used
whatever forms that suited their purpose fantasy, pamphleteering, montage, etc
with the sole purpose of agitating the audiences against the bourgeoisie. The absence
of psychological treatment of characters in Soviet cinema also suited his immediate
purpose characters not to be seen as being born with certain psychological and
human qualities but as being pure constructions of history. Consequently Mrinal
Sen's films now essentially contained the following elements, the basic purpose for
most of which was to practice a Brechtian alienation effect on the audiences:
a) Open-ended, Non-linear Narrative
b) Absence of conventional Story Line
c) Characters not as the centres of expressions and emotions but as 'Models'
d) Soviet Agit-prop Mode of Narration
Using all forms of narration, including direct address, fantasy,
pamphleteering, slogans, montages, etc., to agitate the people
e) New Wave Mode of Filmmaking
Freezes, montages, jump cuts, discontinuities, artificially accelerating or
decelerating the frames, sound-visual disjunctions, hand-held camerawork,
documentary/news reel type of footage, improvisations, reflexivity, etc., all
intended to draw audiences' attention to the filmmaking process itself and
thereby make them conscious of the main message of the film
During this phase, Mrinal Sen is looking for a mode of expression that would
help him move away from the cliched story-telling techniques of Indian cinema
and help him get space for more experimentation. Akash Kusum (1965) is
essentially a film on class conflict, as despite Monica and Ajoy loving each other,
their very class difference separates them. The whole film moves through light
hearted banter, through freeze frames ('truckloads of them' according to Sen!), fast
cuts, jump cuts, disjunction between the visual and the sound tracks as dialogue
continues over frozen frames, acceleration or deceleration of sequences, only to end
on a tragic note absolutely in the last sequence when Ajoy is exposed and Monica
shuts the door on him.
His next film Bhuvan Shome (1969) is a landmark in Indian cinema. It As the
controversy increasingly started becoming personal, the editor was forced to close the
correspondence with Ray saying ''A crow-film is was the first film financed by the
newly set-up Film Finance Corporation. It was made on a modest budget of only
Rs.1,50,000/- and its commercial success opened the flood gates of state-funded films
for all the young film aspirants coming out of FTII. They challenged the hackneyed
story-telling techniques of Indian commercial cinema and its equally vice-like grip on
distribution and exhibition chains for these films. In the end, these new films were
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like a breath of fresh air in the Indian film scenario. No wonder Shyam Benegal
commens:
''As far as Hindi films are concerned, Bhuvan Shome occupies as important a place
as Pather Panchali does, vis-a-vis Indian cinema. Bhuvan Shome opened up a
new horizon."
In Bhuvan Shome, Sen tried the following further innovations:
a) Documentary-style of film footage to establish the background
It has the look of a news-reel footage
b) Animation
c) Improvisations on location (DM, 1995, p. 72.).
While the film was being heralded as a proof of the maturity of Indian audiences to
accept non-conventional forms, Ray thought otherwise in his book Our Films, Their
Films:
''My own opinion is that whatever success it has had, has not been because of ,
but inspite of, its new aspects. It worked because it used some of the most
popular conventions of cinema which helped soften the edges of its occasional
spiky syntax. These conventions are: a delectable heroine, an ear-filling
background score, and a simple, wholesome, wish-fulfilling screen story.
(Summary in seven words: Big Bad Bureaucrat Reformed by Rustic Belle).''
Despite the good storyline, Sen does introduce a twist in the tail. He makes Jadav
Patel, the corrupt Ticket Collector, whom Bhuvan Shome pardons after meeting Gauri
(Jadav Patels fianc), write to her that transfer to a bigger junction means more
income! This raised moral questions. Does it mean that humanisation of a bureaucrat
invariably means a decrease in his moral stature? While Sen leaves the question open,
it may be argued that Bhuvan Shome wasn't really pardoning Jadav Patel but giving
Gauri, whose innocense he trusted explicitly, a chance to reform him. Ultimately,
however, this film is also about class war. As Sen says after enjoying a few days of
liberation as expressed in Shome's 'madness' in office he would have to put on his
jacket and tie, sit solemnly in the chair and continue to disburse bourgeois justice! In
this system, classes are condemned to remain where they are. (DM, 1995, p. 73.).
In 1969-70 itself, Sen together with Arun Kaul, issued a Manifesto of New Cinema
Movement (later called the Indian New Cinema) which basically challenged the
commercial establishment the way it produced, distributed and exhibited films for
which any breaking away from conventions, any experimentation was sacriledgeous.
For sometime, this Manifesto served as the beacon of light for the young aspiring
filmmakers who wanted to break new grounds in Indian cinema.
During this period, the political instability in the country increased. In the air was a
repressed anger of the people whose manifestation occurred in the Naxalite
Movement in Bengal. Even though Sen is formally with the Communist Party of
India (Marxist), his covert sympathies were with the rebels. His subsequent films
from Interview (1970) to Parasuram (1978) all variously portrayed this anger. His
Calcutta trilogy Interview (1970), Calcutta '71 (1972), and Padatik (1973) while
they speak of exploitation of one group by another and its resistance, they are also
landmark films of experimentation in narrative and filmmaking styles. Even though
he is a left sympathiser, he never shied away from raising questions against some of
their modus-operandi. For instance, in Padatik (1963), the Naxalite protagonist raises
a lot of questions of how the Naxalite parties were also exploiting the young rebels.
The film finally ended in the reconciliation between the father and his estranged
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Naxalite son, apparently a throw back on his own estrangement from his father that
had haunted Sen throughout. After this film, Sen was branded by the Left as a
renegade who was ultimately harming the Communist line. But he wasn't bothered; he
reserved his right to speak. In Chorus (1974), a film fully financed by him and whose
subsequent box office failure almost ruined him, he does away with any coherent
narration altogether. It is a totally non-narrative film, which entirely depends on
symbolism, allegory, and fantasy. On why he uses fantasy so much here, Sen quotes
Lindsay Anderson:
''As I have seen, today's fantasy turns out to be the reality tomorrow.''
(DM, 1995, p. 107.)
The fantasy portrayed in Chorus became a chilling reality when Emergency was
declared in India in 1975. In Mrigaya (1976), he narrates at two levels on the
surface is a tale of a young tribal's defiance of colonial authority while underneath
there is a parallel narrative of Sidhu and Kanu's rebellion against the local and foreign
exploiters. Thus Sen stiches history with allegory here.
References:
1. Mrinal Sen, 1977, Views on cinema, Calcutta: Ishan Publication.
2. Deepankar Mukhopadhyay, 1995, The maverick maestro,
New Delhi: HarperCollins India Pvt Ltd.
3. John W. Hood, 1993, Chasing the truth: The films of Mrinal Sen,
Calcutta: Seagull Books.