When your art stops challenging society’s expectations, you decline as an artist

A Nobel Prize winning author travels to his rural hometown in Argentina to accept the town’s highest civilian honor – The Distinguished Citizen award. His hometown Salas is where all of his fiction is set, but even returning after 40 years as a ‘national hero’, the author still finds Salas and its folks full of bigotry and vanity. This Argentine cultural satire isn’t aiming at “feel good journey back home”. It’s a dark comedy that questions the true value of art: Should it challenge our society’s expectations or massage it?

It’s generally suggested that good beginnings have the protagonist start at their most vulnerable state. One of the strengths of the Argentine film ‘The Distinguished Citizen’ is that it opens with the protagonist at his highest point but it is actually showing him at his lowest. Winning the Nobel Prize must be the greatest moment in any literary writer’s career but Daniel Mantovani (played by Oscar Martinez) accepts the prize not in a humble, proud manner. He looks distraught, smiles awkwardly as he greets the Swedish monarch. In his speech the Argentinean writer considers this moment ironic to the artistic worth he has always tried to carry in his work, that true art should challenge what is “established”, make readers “uncomfortable” for accepting and not questioning the normalcy that surrounds them. But standing at the podium, he feels his new place in the elite circle of Nobel laureates has come at the cost of his work fitting the tastes of the elites (kings, academics, judges and specialists) and not being challenging enough anymore. So he asks, does the Nobel Prize celebrate him or really make him redundant?

Five years on, Daniel still hasn’t found peace with that question. We find him in Barcelona staring at what looks like a discarded flamingo bird figure floating on a pond in a park. This visual motif is much emphasized to give an impression of Daniel’s state of mind post his Nobel Prize win. It seems he is just floating in a static reality where he’s run the course of his purpose and nothing excites him anymore. The scenes that follow, build on this image, showing us how he is bobbing lifelessly through each day: accepting or declining invitations to lectures and interviews, honors and awards, writing prefaces, introductions and recommendations for the works of his colleagues. He’s yet to write a new book after his win. Why? Writer’s block is never hinted but it is more likely that he’s lost motivation to write altogether.

There’s nothing so special about the setup. We’ve seen so many iteration of an overachieving (sometimes underachieving) artist, going through old age, who has hopelessly lost touch of her craft and yearns for a new experience to rescue her from this creative rut. Often in the lust for new experience they backtrack to the past: connecting with old friends, old flames and estranged children. This film too plays this classic riff. Here, Daniel gets an invitation from the Mayor of Salas, his hometown in Argentina, to receive the town’s highest civilian honor – The Distinguished Citizen.

But the kind of closure Daniel expects by reconnecting with his old hometown is complex and not that straightforward. He’s never been back to Salas since leaving it in his youth. And 40 years have passed in between. This detachment is understandable for a person who loathed his hometown, moved away, turned his back and cleansed himself off any trace from his old self. But Daniel has always revisited Salas, at least his memories of Salas, which are the inspirations for all the stories and novels he has ever written as a writer.

At first, when he decides to leave for Salas, we might mistake Daniel’s newfound enthusiasm for his hometown as a kicker for a nostalgia trip or even rediscovering his real roots. But I have to point out here, that this is a black comedy and not a feel-good road trip adventure. It isn’t aiming at an uplifting story something in the way of ‘As Good as it Gets’ where a grumpy, insensitive author (Jack Nicholson) transforms into a self-less empathizing man by recognizing the good in people. ‘The Distinguished Citizen’, on the other hand comes as an anti-thesis to the transformational arc of Nicholson’s film. It is loyal to the “true art challenges society, doesn’t bow down to it” philosophy professed by its protagonist at the beginning. So instead of romanticizing the small-town textures of Latin America, the film challenges its bigotry and vanity.

The simpleton folks of Salas know that Daniel is a world famous author. They follow him around the town and hold up their phones to click pictures of him. Most of Salas’ working class people might not have read even a single word Daniel has ever written, let alone read his books. For them Daniel’s fame is much more exciting than his books. Others who have read his work (or heard one of his stories) are less bothered about its literary quality and more into mining scandals by figuring out who might be the real-life inspirations for the characters of Daniel’s frank and overtly dark fictional Salas.

For instance, a local troublemaker crashes Daniel’s lecture and confronts him for trying to sell an untrue and sensationalist image of this beautiful town and its honest people to his European readers. After the troublemaker leaves, Daniel slouches on the desk and shares a very emotional insight to his audience. He tells them that he writes literature not leaflets on ethical behaviors, and the despicable actions of his characters are rooted in the world that we live in, and it doesn’t mean he approves or disapproves their actions. Then a lady raises a hand from the audience and asks Daniel: “But why don’t you write about nice things?” This is where Daniel really gives up trying to defend his fiction in front of his own people, who will likely appreciate his writing if he wrote travel books about the place, highlighting good place to sightsee and dine.

At a broader level, directors Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn are interested in presenting a commentary on Latin America’s aspirations to rise above its rough edged cultural presence to achieve European standards of refined culture. Though at times, Daniel’s cosmopolitan snobbishness make him appear more like a product of Eurocentric values and it feels like he’s looking down upon his hometown too much. But I think Duprat and Cohn find a balance in making fun of and criticizing both of these worlds. Late in the film, Daniel is unveiling his statue at Salas’ local park, he quips by recalling what one of his Nobel laureate colleagues told him once: “Winning a Nobel Prize turns you into a statue”. And in another scene, Daniel reflects that being considered a “distinguished figure” of the community or a “national hero”, your importance is only felt when you are expected to give speeches at public events because rest of the time you are put away in a shelf like an old trophy, where you do nothing but gather dust.

By virtue of his discontent towards both his Nobel Prize and Distinguished Citizen honor, Daniel has the last laugh. He comes to peace with his art. His art doesn’t need a home in the comforts of high-art or in the narrow-mindedness of small town Salas. Because real art transcends prescribed realities and cannot be contained by cultural politics.

 

 

Why Nepali historical films fail? It’s not only the film director’s fault

Stanley Kubrick filming Barry Lyndon (1975). Source: Cinephilia and Beyond  

Nepali films, and in particular Nepali directors, have failed at representing history on screen is the central argument of Stuti Sakya’s piece “Cinema, History and Questions”published in Nepal Magazine. She cites Nepali film directors lack critical perspectives in interpreting Nepal’s history and resort to treating historical materials through bland storytelling conventions enough to put audience to sleep. She contemplates further that directors don’t want to creatively engage with history because there’s only so much that can be presented about a historical moment that what they’ll make will eventually be repetitive.

She elaborates these claims based on comparative discussion of content and style across a handful of Nepali movies (mostly those of Manoj Pandit) and a large body of foreign films (ranging from European art-house to Oscar winning Hollywood movies). Sakya is problematizing a very relevant issue in Nepali cinema but she explores the problem through a very reductionist approach of “content analysis” that unfairly pits Nepali film directors as the most important determinant (read culprits) for the embarrassing state of historical genre. Throughout her essay she keeps on emphasizing: “Nepali directors have a social responsibility when it comes to historical narratives”.

I think to understand the problem of “why Nepali films fail at historical genre compared to global cinema?” the approach of only looking at film content is inadequate. The problem instead must be framed through a broader cinema-society relationship. The argument here isn’t to defend Nepali film directors. It is well known that Nepali film directors are generally bad at historical genres. But it is more significant to explore social and cultural forces at play that have conditioned Nepali film creators to make choices that result in below par works in comparison to the West, or even the Hindi cinema. In the context of historical films, I discuss two prominent socio-cultural factors that directly or indirectly disadvantage our directors to effectively approach the genre as compared to foreign film directors. These are: “the knowledge divide” and “politics of funding a historical film”.

First is “the knowledge divide”. The Western filmmakers easily have an upper hand against filmmakers from the developing world when it comes to accessing rich source materials (novels, narrative non-fictions and archival documents) to draw inspiration for their historical films. And interestingly, the four American films Sakya prominently refers to in her essay – Steven Spielberg’s “The Schindler’s List”, Taika Watiti’s “Jojo Rabbit”, Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave” and Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist” –are adaptation of previously published material (novels and memoirs). In transition from book to screen, directors have rarely deviated from the thematic arcs of the original book. So it is safe to assume that the critical perspective of these films come as much as from its original source material as from its director’s talent.

Also these source materials available to Western filmmakers are “rich” not only in the quantitative sense (“there are so many books”) but in the narrative variety that is at offer (“there are so many ways to portray history”). The historical genre in the Western literature has evolved to spawn multiple sub-genres. War, epics, period pieces and biographies are the more traditional sub-genres. These sub-genres have gone through cross-pollination with other popular genres like mystery, satire, speculative fiction and science fiction to create newer sub-genres of historical mysteries, alternative histories and historical fantasies. They act as pools where directors could dive in to discover their own critical perspectives and tastes on historical materials.

As far as the availability of Nepali history specific source materials for our film directors (let alone genre diversity), they are restricted by the passive contributions to historical genre in Nepali literature (both fiction and non-fiction). It isn’t that good historical studies beyond the mainstream literature are hard to find. But most of the abundant Nepal based historical studies are very scholarly and academic in nature. Obviously, they are written in an academic language to generate new knowledge about the past, and aren’t written with a wider group of readers in mind. These studies are inclined towards thick descriptions and socio-cultural details of historical periods but rarely have the narrative fluidity to make them an easy read, even for serious filmmakers and writers. Not many Nepali fiction writers derive interesting stories and character studies from the knowledge of these scholarly historical studies.

On the other hand, we can see a steady increase in narrative non-fiction on historical subjects in recent times. But still the dominant tradition of writing narrative non-fiction is to study history from a macro-narrative lens of Nepali national politics, featuring a cast of heavyweight political characters who are thought of as the real representatives of the studied time and era. A small body of narrative non-fiction attempts at exploring history through the eyes of non-political figures and everyday people. And still a very tiny body of narrative non-fiction is interested in exploring Nepal’s social history.

Considering these things, isn’t there a “knowledge divide” that stretches between our film directors and foreign directors? American and European directors are situated in a much privileged knowledge position that gives them a lot of freedom to access their own rich and varied historical literature. Mostly it only takes one historical book, be it fiction or narrative non-fiction, for a Spielberg or a Scorsese to build their film on. Because much of the meticulous researching and a grasp on the themes of the subject has been already carried out by the book’s author, film directors will have more space and energy to invest on other creative aspects of the film in addition to the film’s narrative. For a Nepali film director the reality is far removed from this. Undoubtedly I’m not against researching. I for once consider it to be a very rewarding process but doing tons of research in the absence of quality source materials on history takes a toll on both budget and time that is likely to break and alienate a film maker before her research process even reaps any rewards. And this consequence of “knowledge divide” is an important factor why Nepali filmmakers sidestep rigorous researching process and directly jump to filmmaking.

Now let’s move on to the next factor, which I will refer to as “the politics of funding historical film”, that will shed light on why historical films are a demanding film genre. The answer is simple: they are very expensive to make and difficult to get produced/sponsored. To recreate a historical setting means separating lots of budget than a regular film for the art, costume, music, CGI and design departments of the film. For a long time in Hollywood, period and historical pieces were only attempted by big Hollywood studios like Warner Bros., Columbia, Miramax and Universal Pictures. But even then the Hollywood studios wouldn’t have easily backed a historical film unless it was going to be helmed by an already established film director. For instance, Steven Spielberg had already delivered massive commercial hits like “Jaws” in 1975, followed by “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in 1977, before directing “1941” – a period war comedy – two years later. The film had thrice the budget of “Jaws” and nearly twice the budget of “Close Encounters”. To refer a recent example, Taika Watiti’s critical and commercial success by directing “Hunt for Wilderpeople” and “Thor: Ragnarok” led to a big studio like Fox Searchlight to finance 2019’s “Jojo Rabbit”, the script of which he had already completed in 2012.

There are exceptions wherein even an acclaimed director has had difficulties getting his/her historical film produced, the one that comes to mind right now is Martin Scorsese’s long struggle to finance his period gangster epic “The Irishman”. But it’s a general norm in global cinema that historical films are mostly made by already acclaimed or commercially successful film directors and produced by big corporate studios. This trend of big corporate studios produced historical films has sustained in the present time as well, enough to draw criticism questioning the integrity of such historical films and deeming them as mere Oscar baits – films made for the sole purpose of being nominated for the Oscars which may enhance the film’s potential to increase its box office returns.

The European production model is slightly different. In addition to big corporate studios, there are funding grants – often government sponsored or sponsored through development labs of various film festivals – a filmmaker can apply to. Nevertheless, here too the possibility of getting your project funded increases if you are an acclaimed film director, well exposed to the film festival scene. This is true even more for historical films which are tougher to get internationally sponsored.

Thus in the global context, the power play between acclaimed film directors and big financiers (corporate funders and grant funders) is highly significant in determining whether a historical film gets made or not. This dynamic not only shapes Western filmmakers but somehow shapes the entry into global cinema for emerging filmmakers from rest of the world. It is also partly responsible for Nepali film directors not getting to make historical films, or any competent genre films, of global appeal. Our directors are powerless at home, where domestic producers do not have the investment scale to back a historical film and the ones who do, will only come onboard if the film is appropriated to formulaic and grand scale masala sensibilities of ‘Baahubali’ like films.

Filmmakers not willing to take this path and wanting to preserve their artistic vision (in this case, trying to tell a very personal historical film) have yet another road – that of international funding. But as noted above, that road isn’t a blacktopped superhighway. It’s a narrow bumpy road with many roadblocks that can only be cleared once you achieve critical acclaim. And critical acclaim comes only by grinding hard for years to get a festival call up and by continuing to make number of films while waiting for the doors of international funding to open so that finally you have no commercial pressure to deliver the historical film that you always wanted to tell for years.

When the process of making historical films is understood from the divides and inequalities of knowledge, specifically the significant absence of a thriving space for historical genre in Nepali literature circle, and of power struggle in funding historical films, it challenges the view that only film directors are the determinant of how a film is made and they should change their style of filmmaking to improve historical genres. But they are one missing part of this grand puzzle and instigating change from only this group wouldn’t entirely solve this puzzle. Change should also come from publishers, writers, investigative journalists and academics to enhance Nepal’s historical literary scene. Structural and power barriers in national and international funding of films should also be leveled that will ensure classist practices that are ruling the makings of historical films.

Representing history on screen is indeed a social responsibility. Not only for film directors but also for literary and non-literary historical writers and film funders.     

 

 

A jazzy cocktail of crime and charades

 

 

Andhadhun

Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Tabu, Radhika Apte

Director: Sriram Raghavan

Genre: Crime Thriller

There’s an expression in literary circles called the “writers’ writer”. A writers’ writer is someone whose work is highly admired/talked about by other writers but he/she may be relatively unknown to the general public. The same expression can be borrowed for films and to directors in particular. Speaking of modern Hindi cinema, the director rightfully deserving the label of “directors’ director” is Sriram Raghavan, the fifty-five-year-old writer/director of thrillers. His work has enjoyed tremendous cult following among aspiring filmmakers and film nerds but he has never been able to bask global fame like Anurag Kashyap or is much talked about like Vishal Bhardhwaj, Dibakar Banerjee and Neeraj Pandey.

Raghavan’s limited appeal occurs from him sticking to his niche of directing thriller/suspense genre flicks. With the exception of the spy-thriller ‘Agent Vinod’, all of his films seem to take place in the same world, where ordinary folks spiral into the course of macabre crime and moral decay. Two of his films are revenge flicks – ‘Ek Hasina Thi’ and ‘Badlapur’. And the cult favorite ‘Johnny Gaddaar’ is a racy pulp thriller about a man who digs himself a rabbit hole as he tries to conceal his crimes.

His latest film ‘Andhadhun’ (stylized as AndhaDhun) is filled with his trademark style and I am happy to report that it’s a superior companion piece to ‘Johnny Gaddaar’, in the sense that it’s a plot-driven film thriving on slowly and naturally built taut moments. The film is not bothered on fabricating suspense through mystery and the structure isn’t that of a whodunit. Audience is allowed to play God. Raghavan understands that if viewers know everything about the characters while the characters know nothing about each other, it makes for a more participative viewing. We hold their secrets and have a larger context to feel amused or scared, even when these characters interplay with the most ordinary of gestures and emotionally wrecking outbursts.

The film’s title can be interpreted in two different ways. Literally it translates to reckless or rash, and figuratively it means a blind tune. It’s a clever title to a story that blends both of these elements. We have a blind pianist (Ayushmann Khurrana) whose talent makes him a novelty at a Mumbai bar. All things look bright for him, a romance buds between him and the owner of the bar (Radhika Apte), and he’s eyeing to collect enough money to make it big in London. Then one eventful day, for extra cash he knocks the door of an apartment belonging to a washed up Bollywood actor of the 70s (Anil Dhawan), who wants the pianist to play a private concert for him and his wife (Tabu) on their marriage anniversary. But the day that promised a gentle, jazz-filled romantic celebration shifts to an uncomfortable and nervous frenzy.

Raghavan orchestrates the film like a seasoned music conductor. He begins the film with a leisurely pacing. He puts Khurranna’s reputation as the Hugh Grant of Hindi small-town romantic comedies to good use. The opening portion of the film plays out like a fluffy, breezy romantic comedy. And as the normalcy settles in, he instantly disrupts it with a gut wrenching punch. This contrast escalates in intensity and events pile up and the director pumps his composition with a shot of nervous energy and unpredictability.

Khurranna’s presence and performance in the film helps the protagonist to remain likeable even when he ventures into anti-hero territory. He softens and hardens believably, and keeps his morality intact. His transformation is not so pessimistic like the protagonists in Raghavan’s earlier films. Likewise, Tabu seemingly pulls off the different shades of her character. We see her as a noir-ish seductress, grieving wife and a master manipulator. She’s downright sympathetic and also genuinely scary. Radhika Apte is in a short but effective role. Other actors like Anil Dhawan, Manav Vij, Zakir Hussain, Chhaya Kadam and Ashwini Kalsekar are all given their own moments and line of dialogues to shine.

‘Andhadhun’ is a proof that nobody knows how to spin the thriller genre in fascinating and refreshing ways better than Sriram Raghavan. The film doesn’t only have the marks of a master storyteller but also of a serious fanboy who injects 80s Bollywood nostalgia with the sensibilities of classic American and European films from Alfred Hitchcock to Louis Malle. I personally hope ‘Andhadhun’ to succeed in giving the recognition that Sriram Raghavan duly deserves.

Reviews Lost and Found (Kaira, Intu Mintu and Katha Kathmandu)

Kaira (2018)

Cast: Aaryan Sigdel, Samragyee RL Shah

Director: Laxman Rijal

Genre: Romantic Drama

‘Kaira’ curiously pairs together Aaryan Sigdel, the once popular leading man of Nepali romantic films, with Samragyee RL Shah, the busiest Nepali actress working today, in a two and a half hour long and unbearably bad tourism video of the Philippines that only masquerades as a romantic drama.

Director Laxman Rijal pilots a movie that takes off without a destination in mind, meanders without any narrative focus and finally crash lands towards the most unimaginative and tediously formulaic climax where the film tries to win sympathy points by abruptly revealing that one of the characters suffers from an untreatable mental disease.

Sigdel is Jay, the singer and owner of a bar in the Philippines. He’s established in sweeping shots over rooftops, streets and parks, singing with his band. We soon find out that he has cut his ties with Nepal and lives in the Philippines, all because he’s trying to get over a girl. So he parties hard and goes to bed with a different girl every night. The style in which Sigdel’s character is introduced feels heavily inspired by Karan Johar’s ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ where Ranbir Kapoor played a lovelorn musician. The entire movie itself borrows many elements from the Bollywood movie, especially the circumstances that make the leads separate and the climax that involves the aforementioned disease track.

Samragyee RL Shah is the titular Kaira, the girl who broke Jay’s heart back in Kathmandu. One day she shows up in Jay’s bar, apologizes for whatever happened in the past and suggests that they should start fresh. Jay is adamant at first but later agrees on the idea and they spend the next few days sightseeing the locales of the Philippines, challenging each other to dance in public places and counting stars. Things only get drowsy and dull from then on as the screenplay switches back and forth between the present and the events that happened back in Kathmandu.

Given the unremarkably soapy nature of the story, the only way ‘Kaira’ would’ve ever worked is through the easy chemistry between the leads. But Sigdel and Shah give off no spark. What they do is sputter along with their awkward acting. The corny conversation they have makes it hard for us to buy them as people who are made for each other.

In one scene Kaira gazes at the sky and expresses her desire to count the stars. Jay finds this cute and encourages her to start counting. There are number of instances like this where we feel that the middle aged Sigdel is not romancing the young Shah but babysitting her. She giggles a lot and he looks at her sleepily. They give each other talks about living life to the fullest and following one’s dreams, as if in their free time all they do is read self-help books and memorize lines from ‘1001 Inspirational Quotes’. The two lovers don’t feel human even for a moment, they are so wooden and mechanically written that their romantic crisis is never intriguing.

‘Kaira’ has a running time of two and half hours but it comes across as a much longer movie. There’s so much talking, walking, drinking, puking, crying, singing and dancing that you can’t stop fidgeting at your seats or flip out your phone and start scrolling Facebook. This film singlehandedly demonstrates what happens if you mistreat the cinematic medium only as a showcase for rich locations and good-looking actors at the expense of a compelling story.

 

Intu Mintu Londonma (2018)

Cast: Dhiraj Magar, Samragyee RL Shah, Saruk Tamrakar

Director: Renesha Rai Bantawa

Genre: Romantic Drama

‘Intu Mintu Londonma’ is true to the spirit of the playground rhyme that inspired its title. The romantic drama basically imagines a make believe childlike world and just like the rhyme makes no sense at all. We get porcelains as protagonists in Ishan aka Intu and Meera aka Mintu, who spend most of the time trying to act cute and funny but their conversation is neither interesting nor memorable. Whatever they talk and emote is so dull and irrelevant of any context that watching them onscreen is akin to spending time babysitting two annoying five-year-olds.

London based Ishan (Dhiraj Magar) meets Meera (Samragyee RL Shah), the daughter of Nepal’s Ambassador to the UK, at a pub where he plays with his band and also works as a manager. After they are introduced through a common friend, Ishan casually points out to Meera that they have the same coat. Meera gets offended for no reason. Later when she sees Ishan putting a Nepali topi on an ex-Gurkha patron, she smiles at him. Hinting maybe she’s into nationalist dudes and not into someone who wants to elbow in by saying ‘same pinch’. I don’t know.

They meet again, this time in a train where Meera overhears someone singing in Nepali, she follows the voice and finds Ishan. Their romance builds over a weekend of sanitized hiking and sightseeing trips. Next morning they go their separate ways. After that they lose contact only to meet yet again at a mutual friend’s wedding. The lapse of communication in between their weekend trip and the friend’s wedding is never cleared out. Nevertheless, they restart from where they had left.

Soon, Meera’s father (played by journo Dil Bhushan Pathak) gets wind of their closeness. He doesn’t approve of Ishan and to prevent from things going south, he abruptly announces Meera’s engagement to Major Akash (Saruk Tamrakar) of Nepal Army, son of a close family friend, and takes his daughter to Nepal. The rest of the film takes place in Nepal with the backdrop of Meera’s wedding where she’s conflicted between choosing her own life partner or the life partner chosen by her family.

The movie comes from seasoned choreographer Renesha Rai Bantawa. In her first directorial work she outshines in the production design and dance department. There is too much opulence at offer. Characters are dressed like runway models and Sailendra D. Karki’s cinematography doesn’t shy away to capture the London’s postcard perfect locations. But as one tries to look at the film beyond its cosmetic glare, Rai’s direction falls flat on the ground. From her inability to make her young actors internalize their characters to her mishandling of dramatic scenes, she still has to evolve as a storyteller of the larger picture.

The central performances from newcomer Dhiraj Magar and Samragyee RL Shah are poorer than the material with which they had to work. Magar has that Joseph Gordon-Levitt boyishness about him but his pleasing looks is unable to cover up his lackluster acting. His co-star, Shah, on the other hand is six films older and still finding it hard to peel off her pin-up girl image. It’s time she overhauled her career graph and started looking for projects that would make her come out of the glossy world of bubblegum romances. And Saruk Tamrakar, who makes an abrupt entry post-interval, maintains a stiff body posture to appear like an army man.

‘Intu Mintu Londonma’ is a close relative of ‘Kaira’ and ‘Lilly Billy’ that released earlier this year. These films might have an international look with foreign locations and much care is given to make the actors look pretty, still their story engine is second-rate and rusty. Even with modest commercial success, if the Nepali mainstream romantic films keep on delivering such large scale disappointments, the viewers would opt out from showing interest in the genre itself.

Katha Kathmandu (2018)

Genre: Drama/Anthology

Cast: Priyanka Karki, Pramod Agrahari, Sandhya KC, Sanjog Koirala, Ayushman Joshi, Prekshya Adhikari

Director: Sangita Shrestha

 

It’s ironic how a film with such an overarching title like ‘Katha Kathmandu’ turns out to be an anthology of loosely connected trivialities that is so unrepresentative of the spirit of Kathmandu. Author and TV producer Sangita Shrestha directs this film stitching together three stories with thematic fabrics of lust, love and life. But her lens is so shallow and detached from social consciousness that she looks at Kathmandu and its people from a one dimensional way, inspired more from mainstream movies than real life.

These three stories feature a super-model (Priyanka Karki) exploited at the hands of her drug dealer boyfriend (Pramod Agrahari), a teenage college romance between a college hottie (Sandhya KC) and a college geek (Sanjog Koirala) and two terminally ill heart patients (Prekshya Adhikari and Ayushman Joshi), who, at the cusp of life and death, cash in little moments of happiness.

All three are very derivative in its writing and execution. They are blends of broad stroke characters and situations we’ve already seen in so many popular movies before. The darker side of the fashion world, filled with promiscuous models and lecherous men, made me feel as if I walked into a Madhur Bhandarkar film. Also the track of budding romance amidst illness reeks of ‘The Fault in Our Stars’. Writer-director Shrestha never subverts these familiarities and plays them out predictably. She carries a very generalist assumption of drug addicts making her actors rub their noses constantly. Similar stereotypes are given tremendous continuity. One character wears big frames and has a forced stammer just to look socially awkward and enough to make Rohit Mehra from ‘Koi Mil Gaya’ feel proud.

The quality of the film’s writing doesn’t do any favors to the actors. Characters are painted either white or black. Pramod Agrahari tears into his sadistic role with one note intensity. Priyanka Karki is too zoned out in the role of a victim, who gets thrashed around from both Agrahari’s character and Sangita Shrestha’s conceited plot tricks, employed throughout to gain shock value. Only she fails to recognize that to land a good payoff; you first need to have a good setup. The performances from young actors Sandhya KC, Sanjog Koirala, Ayushman Joshi and Prekshya Adhikari aren’t noteworthy enough to make viewers keen about them.

At many points in ‘Katha Kathmandu’, characters will vent their anger at Kathmandu for crushing their dreams and thrusting their lives into a whirlwind of misery. These outbursts barely stir anything to make us care about them or relate their struggle to the contemporary mood and culture of modern day Kathmandu. It’s stilted in its glossy design and flat cinematic aesthetics. Lujaw Singh’s camerawork lacks the poignancy to capture the texture of the city. We stay mainly indoors: in brightly lit clean apartments, expensive looking colleges and hospitals.

‘Katha Kathmandu’ has come one week after ‘Intu Mintu Londonma’, a film that was also directed by a female director (Renesha Rai Bantawa). Although ‘Katha Kathmandu’ has slightly better performances, both films’ central shortcoming is the same. They are more produced than directed. They strictly adhere to the filmmaking conventions that are trendy at the moment. Money is poured to create lavish and rich looking production design but what about the content? With their films, Rai and Shrestha have added no new dimension that could’ve questioned the status quo of Nepali films. Their initial efforts have turned out to be so unremarkably blunt that it will be difficult to keep a keen interest in what they have to offer in the coming days.

Reviews Lost and Found (Hari, Gaja Baja and Naaka)

In an attempt to give this blog a much needed CPR, I’m posting the reviews I’ve written for The Annapurna Express in the past few months. Part 1 follows my writings on Nepali films that I liked in 2018. 

Hari (2018)

Cast: Bipin Karki, Sunita Shrestha Thakur, Kamal Mani Nepal, Thinley Lhamo

Director: Safal KC and Pratik Gurung

I’ve never used the word “Kafkaesque” to describe any Nepali feature films. But it is the only word I could find that sums up the experience of watching Safal KC and Pratik Gurung’s ‘Hari’. Like how Franz Kafka takes his mundane stories into strange and dreamy landscapes, ‘Hari’ juxtaposes elements of realism and surrealism to give us a quirky and lighthearted fantasy about a man having an identity crisis.

Thirty-year-old Hari (Bipin Karki) is a bachelor and a momma’s boy. His possessive and controlling mother (Sunita Thakur Shrestha) still packs him his lunch, picks what he should wear for office and makes him sit through her favorite TV serials. She’s indoctrinated the meek Hari to become a god-fearing vegetarian, the kind that considers garlic and onions unholy. At work, Hari’s tormented at the hands of his junior colleagues, mostly by the mean spirited Akash (Kamal Mani Nepal). They make fun of him behind his back and take advantage of his submissive nature to dodge work.

Thus Hari’s life is unhurried and ordered, stretched between office and home, and between a dominating mother and disobeying colleagues. Nothing happens to him out of the ordinary. Then something so small and insignificant topples Hari’s sedate life and thrusts him in a spiral of ups and downs. He finds himself doing things that he would rather not do, from being infatuated to a girl (Thinley Lhamo) to taking a stand against his office bullies.

KC and Gurung belong to the new crop of Nepali filmmakers daring enough to introduce nuanced cinematic style in their storytelling, subvert established narrative norms and carve a craft that is original and fresh. At a time when our cinema is thriving on big budgeted romantic musicals and ensemble comedies at one end and pretentious experimental misfires at the other, the Kafkaesque ‘Hari’ is right in the sweet spot of good world cinema that is accessible and inoffensive. Chintan Raj Bhandari’s cinematography and Sajan Thapa Magar’s production design gives the film a distinctly original look. Much hard work has gone into the framing and lighting of the scenes to capture an overall modernistic European art house feel.

Its visually innovative sequences are glued together with Hari’s metamorphosis and ultimate explosion. And with what brilliance Bipin Karki pulls off this character. He’s the right cut for Hari, which often times feels like a long lost sibling of the henpecked Phanindra of ‘Jatra’. Karki makes Hari’s struggles believable even at times when things become hazy and otherworldly.

A true cinephile will rejoice in KC and Gurung’s effort to create the atmosphere and aesthetics we are so used to seeing and admiring in films of auteur directors like Wes Anderson, Terry Gilliam and Richard Ayoade. Their approach is not only an exercise in paying homage to the filmmakers they love but also a display of courage to achieve a grand visual design with limited budget, smaller crew and larger determination. In that regard ‘Hari’ is a total winner. However the film will definitely polarize audience. The story progresses without an obvious causality of events and intentionally conceals behind layers of ambiguity. So viewers will not get an ending that neatly ties up everything.

I don’t know if this stylistically crafted yet off-kilter comedy will rake in profit for its makers but I’m confident that ‘Hari’ is an ideal representative of the changing face of contemporary Nepali cinema. This is a movie which will age well and wouldn’t be dismissed or undervalued because of its poor theatrical run.

 

GajaBaja (2018)

 

Cast: Anupam Sharma, Sushil Sitaula, Barsha Siwakoti, Gopal Aryal

Director: Ganesh Dev Panday

 

A pure stoner comedy was long overdue in Nepali cinema. So when writer/director Ganesh Dev Panday announced he was making a film called Gaja Baja about Nepali potheads, I was instantly curious to know how it would turn out to be. It took the makers two years to release the film in cinemas because of their long battle with Nepal’s Film Development Board. Apparently the board members felt that the use of ganja in the film’s title promotes drug use and asked the makers to change the film’s title. However, the case was finally sorted out and the film was granted an adult certificate and was released all over the country last Friday with its original title.

I’m happy to say that the film is a genuine genre piece. It throws its protagonists into an action comedy journey, much in the vein of the popular Harold and Kumar series and Seth Rogen starrer Pineapple Express, though the film’s “one day in the life of two potheads” narrative structure is similar to 1995’s Friday, a cult stoner comedy starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker. Gaja Baja wholeheartedly adheres to the genre troupes established by its predecessors but since it is the first kind of movie rooted in our own urban landscape of Kathmandu, it feels fresh and different from regular Nepali films.

Like mentioned earlier, the movie tells the story of a day in the life of two pothead slacker friends — Gorey (Sushil Sitaula) and Dadhey (Anupam Sharma). We never know their real names or their detailed backstory, only that Gorey has a dominating father, who feels his son hasn’t achieved anything in life to deserve milk tea in the morning. Dadhey’s parents too have given up hope on him. Both of them are least bothered about what their parents think of them or worried about getting jobs. They pass each day, with only one ambition: getting high.

But this particular day isn’t looking any good. They scuttle through the city’s nooks and crannies to fix their weed needs. And this day-long journey of weed hunting takes them to a group of colorful people and puts them in sticky situations.

Anupam Sharma as the dim-witted Dhadey scores high in the laughter meter. He embodies Dhadey’s slacker sensibilities so well that he makes the character lovable. He shares a strikingly brilliant chemistry with Sitaula’s Gorey. They feel real and convincing as they mouth the lingo and deliver the mannerisms of potheads. However, their friendship’s spirit demanded a much smoother ending than the message heavy conclusion that we are offered.

Ganesh Dev Panday’s previous offering Manjari was released in 2013. He faced a lot of backlash when it was discovered that the film was a shot by shot remake of a South Indian movie. He pokes fun at himself in Gaja Baja’s pre-credits when he quotes Quentin Tarantino’s words: “I steal from every single movie ever made.” While Manjari diminished him as a plagiarist, his latest film will definitely help him dim that image. He has showed that much can be achieved with a limited budget, a small setting (most of the film is shot around Mangal Bazar, Shankhamul and New Baneshwor) and a small crew.

Gaja Baja builds its comedy on irony and character frustration. Much of it also comes from characters trash talking and doing puerile activities. It’s a light-hearted comedy without many layers or any character depth, but nonetheless it stays constantly funny and holds you throughout its 90 minutes runtime.

Naaka (2018)

 

Cast: Bipin Karki, Thinley Lhamo, Prakash Gandharva, Robin Tamang

Director: Amit Shrestha

 

Among the new crop of Nepali actors, Bipin Karki is someone who has made a giant leap in just few years’ time. From minor character roles, he has now established himself as a leading man in Nepali movies. He started off with a blink-and-miss role in 2012’s Loot, the following year we saw him sink his teeth in a meatier role in the colossally disappointing Chhadke. But his real breakout performance came in 2016’s Pashupati Prasad, where he portrayed Bhasmey, a low-life gang leader operating in the premises of Pashupatinath area. If we sift through all the characters he’s played in his ten films old career, apart from 2016’s Jatra, he’s mostly played goofy delinquents.

In his latest film Naaka, his character is – no surprises for guessing – a smuggler named Goldie, donning a mohawk. Goldie ticks off every characteristic that’s needed in a stock Bipin Karki character: a small time crook with a colorful name, a flamboyant sense of styling and a speech impediment. Despite this stockiness, Goldie is a menacing anti-hero in this black crime comedy populated by Nepali smugglers and Tibetan refugees.

Goldie and his lackey Hanuman (Prakash Gandharva) agree to help two Tibetan refugees (Thinley Lhamo and Shiva Mukhiya) cross the Sino-Nepal border and bring them to the Nepali side. Goldie’s making the delivery on behalf of Lata Bob (Robin Tamang) and his henchman Ganesh (Ram Bhajan Kamat), who have promised Goldie five lakh rupees in return. But the seemingly easy task turns into a migraine for Goldie, as he has to “karate chop” his way through revenge seekers, bent coppers and double-crossers.

Director Amit Shrestha has plucked the news pages to ground the story in a contemporary context by involving the issue of Tibetan refugee influx in Nepal and the theft of dzi beads (highly prized Tibetan stone beads) that has led to the murders of many Tibetan refugees. Shrestha with the help of his cinematographer Chintan Raj Bhandari resourcefully captures the world of the story. They’ve poured in hours of hard work to give the film its grungy and grimy look.

There are number of odd-ball characters here and only few of them are good-natured. The bonding scenes of Hanuman and the refugee girl Sonam are the film’s most poignantly realized moments. In an early scene, Hanuman makes a puffed face to make Sonam understand that he’s named after the Hindu monkey god, though not realizing that Sonam only speaks Tibetan and may not be familiar with any Hindu gods.

Naaka largely stands on the shoulders of Bipin Karki, who gives the film everything stored in his acting arsenal. Karki blends the humor and menace in equal proportion. It was so exciting to see audience members in the theater rooting for a character that is morally corrupt. This is a clear indication that today’s audience is ready to see bolder and complex performances in Nepali films.

But Naaka is marred with many problems. It relies on a plot that is wafer thin and highly inconsistent. The first half is languidly paced while the second half is filled with synthetic plot ingredients, as if the makers were in a rush to get to the climax. There’s also an over dependence on physical humor that fools around with the unity of the film’s gritty tone.

It’s not a perfect film and I must say its characters deserved a better plot than this but Naaka is a welcome change in the myriad of terrible mainstream Nepali films of recent times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The young innovators of ‘Energy Mela’

In the lounging area of US Embassy’s Innovation Hub (iHUB), thirteen year old Rani Shah and her friends have set up a carnival game which they have named ‘My Lost Diamond’. She relishes the moment when she’s asked to explain about the game she has developed with her classmates. “A queen has lost her precious diamond and now it is up to the game players to help her find it. Whoever wins gets a special reward from the queen in return,” she says in a full hearted manner.

To play her game, first you have to pick a color from a colored paper pinwheel. Once that is done, the game operator will switch on a circuit that rotates the pinwheel which is powered from a small motor. If the color of your choice stops at the image of the queen, you will get the chance to play the second level. Upon reaching that level, your next task will be to use a rubber band sling to launch a ping pong ball across an inclined cardboard surface and try to get the ball inside one of the many holes separated throughout the surface, for which you will get different points.

“Careful! You get only three attempts to score a total of 500 points and win back the queen’s stolen diamond,” Rani instructs an older gentleman as he gets his fingers entangled in the rubber band and wastes all of his three attempts to score not even a single point. Nonetheless, a generous Rani isn’t letting him go empty handed. She gives him a toffee as a consolation gift for trying out the game.

Like Rani, 20 ninth graders from Nepal Adarsha Secondary School, a public school in Ganabahal, have put up five carnival games for show in the ‘Energy Mela’ at the Innovation Hub in Teku. The mela is the final output of an eight week long Karkhana Innovators’ Club session carried out by the educational company Karkhana.

For eight weeks, the students met at the iHUB every Saturday from 8 to 11 AM, where they were introduced to different types of carnival games. Two mentors from Karkhana, Sunoj Das and Milan Dahal, simply urged them to come up with interesting story ideas that could be communicated through their own carnival games and used concepts of energy that they had learned from their Science and Math textbooks.

While working in teams, they were made to adopt a “Think, Make, Play, Improve” principle, also called the TMPI method. “The TMPI method carries the basic essence of the larger product design lifecycle management that engineers, designers and corporate companies use to develop their products. We are trying to cultivate this form of creative and critical thinking, and also risk taking in kids so that they have the edge to become innovators from a young age,” says Hasin Shakya from Karkhana.

“I would come up with one idea, and share it with my friends, who would enhance it by adding something of their own. Then we would discuss our game idea with the rest of our friends, and they would give us new suggestions to make the game even more interesting,” says thirteen year old Ujjwal Darji, whose team has put together the game.

‘Who will reach the planet and save the men’. In their game, three astronaut friends are stranded in three different planets. And as players we are to shoot paper rockets aiming at hollow circles, which act as planets, in a cardboard box planetarium. When the rocket lands inside the cavity, a small LED light brightens, indicating that we have saved our astronaut buddy.

Ujjwal explains the science behind it. “When you hit the rocket in the right planet hole, it will stimulate the aluminum foil that’s wrapped inside. That is what switches on the circuit and make the lights go up.”

Karkhana’s activities with children are solely based on “making centered education”. Here too, the 20 students refined their skills in woodworking, cardboard engineering and paper crafts to design their game structures and at the same time, they practically incorporated their understanding of different forms of energy in the working mechanism of their games.
For the kids of today, mobile apps and video games have become the standard appetite for fun and games. Karkhana’s ‘Energy Mela’ is a welcoming change in that regard because it has made kids realize that they can enjoy more by creating games of their own rather than just becoming consumers.

“While video games are addictive and they dull the minds of children, our initiative is not against video games. We are just trying to say that this is the right age for school children to involve in brain development activities. Working together to make carnival games is one such way where children enjoy the entire process as well as enhance their knowledge about their world through Science and the art of storytelling,” shares mentor Milan Dahal.

Though they are a profit making company, regularly offering sessions for school children like the ‘Make your own DIY Satellite’ – which comes with a Rs 6000 fee – at their Gyaneshwor office, Karkhana is seeking sponsors to expand its free ‘Energy Mela’ program  to students of five more public schools at the Innovation Hub within the end of this year.

first published in Republica, July 16

 

Nepali debaters head to Stuttgart for WSDC

It is after school hours at the Rato Bangla School. Students are rushing around the basketball court dressed down in their sports attire. But in a secluded classroom somewhere, study desks are shuffled around and arranged in a way so as to create a practice space for young student debaters, who will represent Nepal in the World Schools Debating Championship (WSDC) that is going to take place in Stuttgart, Germany from July 19 to July 29.

The team of Simran Thapa, Abhaya Gauchan and Avash Byanjankar is up against a practice team made up of their own friends. The group debate is about whether or not people should donate their wealth for poverty alleviation after they’ve fulfilled their basic needs.

All three of them look experienced in the etiquettes of the parliamentary form of debating, where one team debates acting as the government side while the other puts its idea as the opposition party.

The debaters have sharpened their ears in such a way that any fumbles or contradictions from the oppositional speaker hardly go unnoticed. To an outsider, they may look like ordinary teens but as you see them taking notes or holding up a hand to object the viewpoints of their opponents, your attention is fixed at the level of analysis they are producing on the topic of discussion. And when it’s turn for them to speak, they don’t disappoint. They guide their knack for critical arguments in rhythm to their swaying hand movements.

As Simran and her group members are busy tackling the practice team, Alaukik Pant and Aakash Pant are each seated at one corner of the room, taking notes of their own. They will also be in the five member Nepali debate team along with Simran, Abhaya and Avash that’s heading to Germany. The debaters are all high school students from Rato Bangla School, except Avash, who has recently graduated high school from Chelsea International.

“Debate is the engagement of ideas that brings quality to discussions and is more interesting than just regular talking or conversation,” Simran explained when asked why she loves debating.

This will be the fourth time Nepal will be making its appearance at the WSDC tournament. For making it to the international tournament, first a national WSDC tournament should be held. In the past two years, Debate Network Nepal (DNN) has been working as an official organizer for Nepal. DNN had successfully organized the 2nd National WSDC, MahaKumbha this year. And after going through the screening of all the participating debaters in the national competition, they announced the final five over a month ago.

Pradeep Ghimire, the chairman of DNN is keen to see Nepal improving its rank among the 56 competing nations. “This year we have worked hard to take everything according to the right process. We have called international trainers and are grooming our debaters through regular practice sessions and closed camps,” he said.

Rishab Krishna Shrestha, a recent graduate in Sustainable Energy from Imperial College, London and the co-founder of DNN, is currently coaching the team. He’s working with them so that they have inside-out knowledge about the topics they are speaking. “I’m working with the team to help them shape their analysis in a more precise order and implement those ideas in a story-like speech,” Shrestha shared.

In their eight preliminary rounds, four rounds would be impromptu while the rest of the four rounds would have them debating in prepared motions that range from ‘Obama Care’ to ‘Refugee Crises’. Although majority of topics have them talking about issues of the Western world, debaters believe that as Nepalis, this situation weighs more as an advantage than disadvantage for them.

“Yes, we can’t bring nuanced examples to our speech but being brought up in Nepal we can bring a richer perspective than the regular line of thoughts and ideas,” Aakash said.
The five students are financing their own trip to Stuttgart. Including the 580 Euro registration fee, and other expenses regarding air tickets, the students would be spending around Rs 200,000 each.

Attempts were made from DNN to crowd fund the amount and even appeal the government to sponsor the visit. “We had proper paperwork and tried to talk with the government bodies, but things didn’t work out,” Ghimire said.

He believes that because there is no proper realization about debating culture in Nepal, it will take few years for schools and the government to support young debaters and see debate as an activity that harbors the future nation builders. Despite these indifferences, Ghimire sees the self funding situation as a worthwhile investment given the exposure the students are getting from the event.

Abhaya has some similar views. “Our trip to Stuttgart will not only be a personal achievement. We are hopeful that seeing us participate in the big arena, students and schools in Nepal would be encouraged to promote the debating culture in Nepal,” he said.

first published in Republica, July 16

 

PS ZINDAGI – So Far (REVIEW Pt. 1)

PS ZINDAGI (web series)

Creator: Kavita Srinivasan

Cast: Kavita Srinivasan, Sujata Koirala, Utpal Jha, Rajkumar Pudasaini

These are times when even though we are sound asleep, our internet router blinks the whole night just to let us download the entire season of Breaking Bad, which we can binge watch later and finish in about a week and then move on to an entirely new season of another series.

We are catching up to get our hands on everything, be it comedy, drama, anthology, crime, mystery, sci-fi, horror and sketch comedies. And then you have the ever reliable Youtube that gives us The Viral Fever, All India Bakchod, College Humor and Funny or Die (to name a few). So it is an obvious case that Nepali audience shimmered on the oeuvre of US television and Youtube comedies would want to see those aesthetics reciprocated to Nepali content.

At least, the new comedy web series PS ZINDAGI feels like something hanging onto this bandwagon.

Using the buddy/roommate sitcom framework – in the style of F.R.I.E.N.D.S., The New Girl, How I Met Your Mother – the comedy web series has got its heart in the right place. But looking at what’s been put in the first three episodes, the makers are happy just to cruise around and give you the feel that we are in a Western-ish sitcom, while the rest of it is pure sputter of hasty enthusiasm and unfocused storytelling.

The PS stands for Post Seismic. Creator of the show, Kavita Srinivasan, sets the story around five Kathmandu yuppies post the devastating Nepal earthquake of 2015.

JP (played by director Utpal Jha), a chartered accountant turned aspiring musician, lives with his freeloader friend Krishna (played by Raj Kumar Pudasaini), a man-child in boxers who wrecks conversations with his not-so-good command over the English language . Two Muslim sisters move to the flat downstairs- Kokab (played by Sujata Koirala) and June (played by Kavita Srinivasan). Kokab is the youngest yet the most wised up while June is the eldest and still the mercurial. The fifth character is their mysterious landlady, who appears every now and then but her face hasn’t been revealed yet. The show populates itself with these characters but even after three episodes it is still not sure where to go with them.

Pudasaini comes with years of theatre behind him. As a stage actor, in his plays his deadpan delivery makes him an easy scene stealer, here Pudasaini’s function is to provide comic relief and he tries hard to make his every mannerism count at the laugh meter but many times it feels forced and cartoonish. The writing gives him only situations where either his English is made fun of or his boxers. Utpal is one note throughout all the episodes, both in terms of performance and dialogue delivery. His lackluster acting style doesn’t stick well to make him any more captivating.

As for the sisters, they frustrate us by continuously bickering, nagging and always intimidating each other by bringing their “Ammi and Abbu” in their every arguments. Both actresses are pleasing and free-wheeling but hearing them overuse fillers like “God”, “like seriously” and “I mean” are too cringe inducing. Yes, people do talk like that but the purpose of dialogues is to advance the story, clear out a point, not take the same conversations in circles. The makers are aloof about layering their comedy and make the cardinal sin of letting their characters verbose and loud instead of witty and thoughtful.

The three episodes old PS Zindagi is still searching for a voice and a consistent narrative. Almost all the scenes happen indoors, that’s the limitation that PS Zindagi is obvious in showing, but what it requires is making more use of the space and putting characters into situations that reveal them and let us feel for them. Random outbursts, on-the-nose revelations do little to create drama and situational laughs. As it stands, they discuss on various topics, show variety of behaviors but at the end of each episodes we feel like nothing has happened or nothing that truly matters has happened.

In the words of the great Elvis Presley: “A little less conversation, a little more action please!”

Watch the series here

The Man in the Picture – Kesang Tseten’s Castaway Man

The opening images of Castaway Man gets us down at the Haridwar railway station. There the camera follows Basanta Thapa, author and former editor of Himal magazine, who wanders through the ghaats and alleys holding a black and white portrait photograph of a man. The man, captured in a medium shot, is garbed in dhaka topi, daura and coat, his right shoulder slightly tilted to emphasize a pose that gives him the air of a neta or a high post hakim at a government office. Thapa proceeds to question the locals, the meditating sadhus, the Nepali Brahman community and the police authorities if they recognize this person from around here. All of them shake their heads unsure but are curious to know who the person in the picture is (so are we). Thapa gives them a sparse answer, “He’s a big man, a professor”, and refrains from elaborating any further.

Kesang Tseten’s new documentary is about the man in the picture, the controversial Nepali anthropologist, social scientist and public intellectual Dor Bahadur Bista.

Switching us back to Kathmandu, we see Thapa busy at his work table translating Bista’s book that gave him scandalous popularity. Fatalism and Development, where Bista poured his radical and straightforward commentary on the socio-economic issues of Nepal.

Bista sounds straight from the shoulder as he’s heard on the sound track saying, “Fatalism and development are opposite ends of the same spectrum. By fatalism I mean when people are continuously fed, bombarded, brainwashed with the idea that ultimately, what you are today is not a result of what you made yourself but was determined in your previous life or by some supernatural phenomenon or divine power.” The audio is taken from his interview with the American anthropologist Jim Fisher.

His work was grounded in unveiling what he called the evils of Brahamanism, or brahamanical value system, as a narrow minded and highly prejudiced system that interprets Hinduism in favour of only a certain class of people and alienates and discredits the culture and identity of other ethnic minorities. This he saw as something that has been sheltering the caste based discrimination that has been going on forever in Nepal.

It is the movie’s accomplishment that it takes the ideas of Bista as a context and juxtaposes a collage of Nepali people from different ethnic background who directly pour their dissatisfaction on caste based hierarchy. A youth from a minority group confesses that if he had been born to a Chhetri or Brahman family he would have had more opportunities, while an elderly Brahman man is unhappy with the situation where a poor Brahaman wouldn’t have the same luxury of quota and reservations that a dalit or janjati may enjoy. The film finds its centre in these snippets of voices.

Tseten intricately structures the narrative as a mystery but it’s a freewheeling mystery. Thapa is our investigator, someone of that ilk who wants to re-live the experiences of Bista that helped him shape his theories in his book. So he talks with Bista’s children, who are now reaching the same age their father was when he disappeared in 1996 (at the age of 69). His children remember him best as a rebel, insistent to stand by his views from impromptu debates with their grandfather over an issue as trivial as bowing down to touch a pandit’s feet to caustic statements like the Shah Kings of Nepal have Magar lineage.

As Thapa and Tseten try to piece together the final days of Bista before he disappeared, they reach a place called Chaudhabise in Jumla, where Bista spent lots of his later years operating the Karnali Institute with the aim of educating and reforming the backward communities. In the most captivating section of the documentary, a local caretaker of the Karnali Institute building takes Thapa through the abandoned building and we are shown what’s left of Bista’s Karnali Institute – library with no books, vacant rooms with furniture and equipment stolen, rickety wooden floorboards and beams feeding the termites.

Maybe he was alone in his struggle and the problems too big because as the film culminates, words from his journals and letters resonate a form of despair and anger. His frustrations were growing because he was unable to make the people understand the faults in the rituals and customs that sided with exploitation in the name of justice.

Castaway Man searches for the elusive Bista even after it ends. And it leaves us in Haridwar where it was reported Bista was last seen. Thapa, in a dismal reflection, says, “Why would he settle in Haridwar of all the places?”, and we ask the same question. As for the movie it may not have the details about Bista’s whereabouts but it does let us find him in his work and ideas!

CITIZEN KANE and the luring mystery of ROSEBUD

Orson Welles was a first time director when he made his debut with Citizen Kane in 1941. His film is  powerful not only because it remains as the most hyped movie for 74 years, ranking always on every critic’s top ten list, and considered to be the greatest movie ever made, and specially the most analyzed, over-analyzed and talked about movie but because it is a film that’s an essential textbook of film form and aesthetics, and because it carries the medium of film in its full potential.

Everything has been said about Citizen Kane and there wouldn’t be anything useable to add to analyses and appreciations that have been adorned to this particular motion picture. The celebrated film critic Roger Ebert has lent a special commentary track on Citizen Kane, and another celebrated but controversial film critic Pauline Kael has written The Citizen Kane Book, a book entirely dedicated to the movie. So this response to the movie may not be something new, however, the mystery behind “Rosebud” still gives a new audience of this masterpiece a fedora hat of a private investigator’s and opens itself for interpretation.

I have only watched Citizen Kane twice. The first time when I watched it, I was only able to make it up to the 35^th minute mark, and though it may seem only the quarter of the film, so much had happened in the movie, I couldn’t keep up with it. This was five years ago. Recently when I re-watched it again, I fell in love with the movie.

I understand that the movie is a technical marvel, but the story of Charles Foster Kane is in itself plotted so well that the surrounding technology works only as a framework to the emotional centre of Kane’s loss and loneliness. This core is exactly where the signified meaning of the word “Rosebud” exists.

Citizen Kane begins with the death of Charles Foster Kane. A short obituary documentary clip celebrates the man, provides us a run-down on each and every milestones and controversies of the newspaperman who climbed too quickly as the most feared media tycoon of USA.

Though the rest of the film attempts at depicting the childhood, youth and old-age of its titular character, the life-events are not shown in a linear timeline or stacked one after the other. But we are given an audience surrogate in the form of a journalist, Mr. Thompson, who has been given the job to investigate the mystery behind the dying words (“Rosebud”) of Charles Foster Kane.

Post Kane’s death, our reporter Mr. Thompson tries to piece together the jigsaw puzzle which is the life of Charles Foster Kane. He visits the library of a Mr. Thatcher, who was Kane’s solicitor appointed by his mother, and studies his journal about Kane; he meets Kane’s close associate and now the caretaker of his estate, Mr. Bernstein, Kane’s second wife, the washed up singer Susan, and Kane’s best friend at one time, Mr. Leland. And through all this time, Mr. Thompson tries to get the truth behind “Rosebud” and unknot the controversial life of Kane from the fragments and memories of the key people who delightfully came into and sorely went out of Kane’s life.

This goal of Thompson to unravel the mystery of Rosebud gives the plot the motivation and movement. Many critics and viewers often considered this little plot device used by Welles to be a cheap trick, and a trivial metaphor, but mind you, the pursuit for Rosebud isn’t a red-herring. Rosebud in itself carries the essence of Charles Foster Kane’s longing throughout his life – a man whose miseries couldn’t be washed by all the material wealth in the world.

In the dying minutes of the movie Mr. Thompson says, “…I don’t think any word can explain a man’s life…”

The reporter abandons his search for “Rosebud” but it is revealed to the audience nonetheless. “Rosebud” was actually Kane’s sledge which we briefly saw earlier in a flashback scene of Kane’s childhood during a snowy winter at his house in Colorado, when his parents decide to send him off to be brought up in a proper school. In this scene, young Charlie is helpless. He’s taken away against his will and has to lose everything that’s dear to him at that time – his family.

We hear Kane mention “Rosebud” twice, and both times he’s shown holding a paperweight. The unique thing about this paperweight is that inside the paperweight there’s a miniature landscape of a house in a blizzard. In an inherent manner, this paperweight must evoke the old painful memory of that wintery morning at his family’s place in Colorado.

So, linking together the paperweight, the sledge, and the day he was taken away from his parents, gives us the impression of Kane’s suppressed childhood memory that he always carried in his psyche. When later in his adult life, his second wife leaves him, he has a break down. He trashes down his wife’s bedroom and only when he gets his hand on the paperweight he calms down. This moment in his adult life mirrors that moment in his childhood. He recollects his personal battle of being abandoned by first his parents, second by his close friend and lastly by his wife Susan.

Mr. Thompson mistily leaves us with this remark, “Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn’t get, or something he lost.” Yes, Charles Foster Kane achieved a high societal status, bought the Chicago Inquirer, became a media tycoon, ran for the Governor, built his wife her own opera house and a modern day castle, but he was penniless in the department of parental love that haunted him till his adult life and he stayed bankrupt of a solid emotional relationship.