For me the time of action is over… the time for reflection begins. As a character famously said at the start of Godard’s remarkable film The Little Soldier, for us too as we are back from the 40th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) with loads of haunting memories and images, the time for reflection has just begun. In this version of the festival the most satisfying moment was the screening of Jyotiprasad Agarwala's Joymati to mark the 75 years of Assamese cinema, which was complete with screening of another three films — Padum Barua’s Ganga Chilanir Pakhi, Dr Bhabendranath Saikia’s Agnisnan and Manju Bora’s Aai Kot Nai. Ironically, it is the festival to which no Assamese film could make way for its Indian Panorama section. The pain one could feel at the core of one's heart is that of a void, that has gripped the present state of cinema in Assam.

Every film festival has its own share of surprises, shocks and rewards. So in this year's IFFI, Goa; a nondescript film from Georgia, George Ovashvili’s The Other Bank shone bright and won the hearts of many. The Other Bank, which has similarity to the famous Angelopaulos classic Landscape in the Mist in many ways but nowhere near the masterpiece, is a moving film that unfolds the terrible fate of its young protagonist Tedo whose tender life is caught between the conflict of Georgia and Abkhajia to present him with shock and awe he was not prepared to encounter. Made a refugee by the 1990s conflict, he lives at a dingy place on a Tbilsi outskirt. The humiliating sight of his mother selling her flesh to earn a livelihood compels him to go wrong way so much so that he has to escape from Tbilsi and start his journey to find his father who could not flee Abkhajia for poor health. A journey fraught with danger in every step, Tedo encounters good, bad and ugly along the road; a rape attempt on a fellow passenger, reckless killing and the extreme hatred by the Abkhajian for the Georgian. Each time he encounters the extremes he shuts his eyes in unease as if to escape from the reality psychologically. An elder couple spared him for he acted deaf and dumb but at the border a merry-making armed Abkhajian group picked him up once again only to find the boy to be a deaf and dumb. As the group breaks into a dance and invites Tedo to dance as well, he unwillingly joins them, forgetting his trick. The film ends there. Nobody knows what is in store for Tedo; he represents a generation every war makes their life extremely perilous and unbearable. However, we knew one thing — the culture and customs for the Geogian and Abkhajians are same, the only difference is that the river flows between their territory and the hatred accumulating in the hearts of the people seems without much reason. The power of The Other Bank lies in the treatment; an emotive story narrated with graphical unfolding of events, the trail of shock, horror, mayhem and twist of destiny. Here, Tedo’s desperate yearning for his father is equaled with a dogged hope of the boy, which gives him rare courage and determination as if to find his roots. As the inquisitive audience gheraoed the director after the screening, Ovashvili said there is not much difference amongst the Georgians and Abkhajians so far religion, culture and customs are concerned and therefore, if we can do away with our hatred for one another, permanent reconciliation is still possible. He said the boy was a novice and picked up from a village while scouting for the lead child actor. However, with his squint eyes he seems to be cut out for the role and his deft portrayal of the character further heightens the beauty of the film.

Priority-wise, the film that comes next to my mind is And a Warm Heart from Poland and from a great master of Polish cinema, now septuagenarian Krzysztof Zanussi. The father of essentially Polish trend of ‘cinema of moral anxiety’ here too takes up the issue once again albeit in lighter vein in his black comedy, which with baggage of comical events underlines the growing degeneration of human values and also posing a question whither more reliable soul remains to be the dogs and cats. Here supermarket mogul Konstanty’s life suddenly becomes dependent on a just fired up employee Stefan, as his pampering of pet and kindness for the poor did not go well with the ‘principles of business’. Job lost, he was dumped by his fiancée the same day prompting him to go suicidal but without success. And for Konstanty, who pompously claimed to his doctor that “I can afford anything in the material and moral sense” but knew the hard way of getting a live heart for transplantation can be a nightmare, what could be a better prey than Stefan, a man intent on killing himself. So Konstanty engages his henchman Angelo to get the heart of Stefan by ‘giving him what he wants’. Ploy after ploy fails and what a twist of destiny! Once such trick got Angelo’s vehicle crashed, though his heart remained healthy enough to accomplish the transplantation. Konstanty’s life is saved and the man’s heart changed drastically so much so that he is now seen amongst the poor, keeping himself busy doling out his wealth. As for Stefan he found solace amongst his pets, rearing them in plenty to live faraway from the mean, mad, self-centered people around. The film beautifully unfolds the rising economic inequality of Polish society and conflict of interest and ideology of the classes, the upper and lower strata. He however pins his hope on Stefan, a character imbued with the innate goodness and naivety exudes a divine glow or may be a power having strength to change the ‘mightier’. Thoroughly enjoyable yet multi-layered in treatment, Zanussi’s forte lies in his power to set in motion a surge of thought the viewer experiences even before they cross the last cinema hall door.

It is very natural that viewer, who saw the 4 months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the pathbreaking film of Romania by the phenomenal Christian Mungio, which bagged the Palme d’Or in Cannes, cannot resist but see on the first opportunity, his latest film Tales from the Golden Ages. With this film Mungio once again takes on with a humorous streak on Communism or rather the dictator of the left regime Nikolai Ceausescu. The film is actually combination of five stories, all scripted by Mungio, who directed only the most memorable segment of it — The Legend of the Truck Driver leaving the rest to be directed by others. The film starts with The Legend of Official Activist. A village prepares frantically to welcome a Party motorcade under the strict vigilance of the local leaders. However, postponement of the programme kicks off a boozing spree and as per the ‘order’ all the villagers, including the operator of a roller-coaster, embarks on a ride that no one was there to stop till the fuel exhausts. In The Legend of Party Photographer, the photographer is required to doctor a front page photograph of a hatless Ceausescu shaking hands with the taller French President Giscard D’Estaing, as if the photograph gives the impression that communism is somewhat subservient to capitalism. In The Legend of Greedy Police a man tried to kill a pig in their kitchen without alerting the neighbours, which culminated in a ludicrous fiasco. In The Legend of Sellers, a couple of students turn conmen to collect glass bottles in guise of air sample collectors to sell them later at the bottle bank. As usual it went haywire as police soon unearths the scheme and nabs the culprit. In Mungio-directed The Legend of the Truck Driver, a truck driver also falls prey to the greed as dry family life and a craving to be loved by a restaurant owner indulges him in stealing egg from his cargo, in absolute breach of the company rules. Clearly the best segment from the rest, the funny stories of Tales from the Golden Age portrays the moral degeneration, the nasty 15 years of Ceausescu rule had precipitated in Romania, where food or rather its crisis is the leitmotif. Mungio on the other hand grudgingly lampooning the authority of the time by letting them behave clownishly and thereby trying to give us the impression to what degree the rule had stooped low.

Bitopan Borborah