The inveterate intellectual cinephiles, especially the ones in Kolkata, may turn their noses up at the mention of Bollywood. But from 8 March to 20 April, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, US, is all set to hold a film festival to screen 12 Indian classics as part of a guest programme titled, ‘Emotion in Colour: A Kaleidoscope of Indian Cinema’.
The fare isn't all Bollywood masala, though. There is food for thought for the intellectual too as the menu includes some definitely out-of-the-box appetisers like the Manipuri classic Ishanou (1990) directed by Aribam Syam Sharma, one of the oldest living pioneers of Indian cinema and among the most venerated. Then there is Satyajit Ray’s iconic Kanchenjungha (1962).
The intellectual may, however, decide to ponder over the phrase 'iconic' and what it means for a film or a filmmaker to be labelled thus.
The adjective derives from the noun “icon," meaning someone or something that can be “regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration.”
Iconic filmmakers must thus have their names carved in stone in the history of Indian cinema. But is everything by and of an icon as equally iconic? Who decides the merit or degree of how iconic any given thing is, especially a subjective endeavour like film?
Let us try and extrapolate from the 'dirty dozen' we have on hand here.
50 Years of Indian Cinema
The films to be showcased over the next month in LA span a wide period, beginning with Mehboob’s Mother India (1957) and concluding with Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Jodhaa Akbar (2008.) This covers around fifty years of Indian cinema.
The series has been curated by my friend, filmmaker, and preservationist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur who is the founder-director of the Film Heritage Foundation and has dedicated himself to the restoration of classic films for the large screen.
Says Dungarpur, who was invited to curate the festival, “The series aims to emphasise the vast richness and diversity of Indian cinema, spanning decades, languages and genres".
"The films featured at the festival encapsulate the grandeur of period dramas, the defiant voices of feminist narratives during colonial rule and the hopes of a newly independent nation".Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, filmmaker and festival curator
The lineup is armed with films like Manthan (1976) and Mirch Masala (1987) that delve into themes of feminist defiance and the intricate political drama of the everyday. Films like Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge (1995), Devdas (2002), and Jodhaa Akbar (2008) capture the escapist joy of romance while reflective works of parallel cinema like Kanchenjungha (1962) and the experimental Maya Darpan (1972) bring up the impressive rear.
While there is a fair sprinkling of regional garnishes in the form of Bengali (Satyajit Ray), Malayalam (G Aravindan), Tamil (Mani Ratnam) and Manipuri (Aribam Syam Sarma) films, Hindi continues to dominate the lineup with Bollywood retaining its claim over the main (stream) course.
One wonders why the selection does not contain a single film by Mani Kaul, or Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, or Girish Kasaravalli whose first feature, Ghatashraddha was incidentally restored, quite recently, by the same foundation that restored Manthan.
Even Mani Ratnam’s Iruvar (1997), though remarkable, could have been replaced with the more sensitive and political Bombay (1995) which addressed a powerful message of communal harmony at a time when the country was facing a critical political juncture.
Hits and Misses
One would like to know the criteria Dungarpur set for himself in the choice of the dozen films. If an Amitabh Bachchan film had to be chosen, why Amar Akbar Anthony and why not Anand (1971) or Main Azaad Hoon (1989)?
All three are mainstream films but no one will disagree that the latter two are far superior to Amar Akbar Anthony in terms of quality, narrative, and histrionics.
If Anand had been included, it could have served as a tribute to Hrishikesh Mukherjee while Main Azaad Hoon would have celebrated the versatile contribution of the legendary Bachchan to the actors' oeuvre.
Granted, Mani Ratnam's Iruvar has won a string of awards and was a big box office success. But he too has made more distinguished mainstream films like Yuva (2004).
Why not a single Marathi language film like Nagraj Manjule’s Fandry (2013) about a dark-skinned teenager from a Dalit family who lives on the edges of a village and falls in love with an 'upper caste', fair-skinned girl?
Why not a single classic by Guru Dutt? Why not a film focused on children such as Taare Zameen Par (2007) which was both a commercial success as well as lauded for its strong sociological content addressed to parents of children like Ishaan Awasthi?
If Shahrukh Khan deserved a tribute, why not Swades (2004) or Chak De India (2007) instead of Devdas or DDLJ - films that many must have watched globally already? Incidentally, Swades was inspired by the story of Aravinda Pillalamarri and Ravi Kuchimanchi, the NRI couple who came back to India and developed the pedal power generator to light remote, in an off-the-grid village school in Bilgaon, Maharashtra. So much for mainstreaming realism.
Ageing Icons
Mother India (1957) will be celebrating 68 years this year. Produced and directed by Mehboob Khan - famous for his social agenda films packaged with a lot of chutzpah, grandeur and melodrama - the film was assessed among the ten biggest hits of Indian cinema in the 20th century. Its memory remains archived in the minds of those who watched it and those who are watching it now as a flashback, not into Indian cinema as it used to be in the past, but a look at docu-style slices of life of farmers and peasants of rural India of that time.
Since cinema is an audio-visual medium, it had and still holds greater appeal for the masses than the written word. This has to be taken against the backdrop of the literacy rate that grew from 18.33 percent in 1951, to 77.7 percent in 2023.
Manthan seems to be an ideal choice. The film had a definite agenda of creating a platform for the significance of building a milk cooperative in a remote village of Gujarat and was designed to reach the masses of exploited peasants and milkmen. It is never judgmental about any of the characters but shows them as they are, blending the good with the bad. The illiterate Bindu and Bhola slowly metamorphose from being suspicious of the motives of Dr Rao to becoming convinced of his intention to give them a fair and unexploited life that they themselves create.
D for Diaspora
However, questions and critiques notwithstanding, it is important to define the term 'diaspora'. Because this is the demographic for whom such cinema wish-lists are created.
Though originally a “Greek word, diaspora means 'disperse' or literally to 'sow over'... Originally a neutral word merely indicating geographical dispersion”.
The term continues to be heavily contested, with scholars unable to develop a cohesive, concise definition. This is in part due to the fluidity of the processes that the term diaspora attempts to encapsulate and the intangibility of the social networks and cultural phenomenon that make “a diaspora community settled in a particular country ‘diasporic’ rather than simply ‘ethnic’.
The festival intends to target the large diaspora of Indian-American audiences in LA, who might have missed out on watching these films in theatres. It's an opportunity for third generation immigrants to learn about films their parents liked. It's a way to 'connect with roots', et al.
According to Dungarpur, therefore, we must agree when he states that, "...these twelve films are more than just a celebration of cinematic artistry; they are a vivid mosaic of language, culture and colour, offering audiences in Los Angeles a glimpse into the boundless kaleidoscope of Indian cinema.”
For now, let us find cheer in that. Other debates can perhaps wait.
(Shoma A Chatterji is an Indian film scholar, author and freelance journalist. This is an opinion article, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)