Marxist
reflection on contemporary Bollywood political satirical movies: A special
reference to “Kaun Kitney Paani Mein” (2015)
Since
1970s, film theories generally help to understand film language or film
semiotics. Every film has its own “cinematographic language” which tries to
convey a particular message or tries to give an impression. Cinemas have always
been assumed as an effective vehicle for transmitting a symbiotic relationship
with a particular ideology. Stephen
Heath has written, "That reality, the match of film and world, is a matter
of representation, and representation is in turn a matter of discourse ....
[I]n this sense at least, film is a series of languages, a history of
codes."1
Marxism
and films are two orientations that have been merged sometimes. Films are
considered as “a tool for critique of the ideology of the situation” and
Marxism as “a tool for economic and political transformation of society”.2
Films can be understood as a complementary aspect of the Marxist critique of
society as a whole. Marxist aesthetics has been reflected earlier in many films
of Pasolini, Chaplin, Dovzhenko, Eisenstein, Godard etc. In
contemporary Indian Bollywood political satirical films, a trace of Marxism can
be found also. “Kaun Kitney Paani Mein” (2015) is one of the examples of these
films. Iconic aspects of pictorial signs/scenes, narratives, linguistic signs/
dialogues give an echo of certain Marxism aspect like utility value of
commodity, production etc. Nila Madhab Panda’s this 1 hour 48 minutes’ creation
revolves around two fictitious villages named ‘Upri’ and ‘Bairi’, which are
made up of ‘upper caste’ and ‘lower caste’ respectively. They are at
loggerheads over the distribution of water as generations back there was a
murder by the Maharaja due to love issues between different castes. In the
beginning of the film, the ‘utility value of water’ has been illustrated.
Foreigners’ as well as Baniyas’ rejection to buy Maharaja’s land due to lack of
water; worst sanitation condition in Upri village – these certain pictorial
symbols as well as the story plot itself are used to emphasise the ‘value’ of
water. Later it has been portrayed that packets of water become mode of
exchange or currency in ‘Upri’. The depiction of adding ‘value’ to water
reminds of Marxist thought ---
“Value,
therefore, being the active factor in such a process, and assuming at one time
the form of money, at another that of commodities, but through all these
changes preserving itself and expanding, it requires some independent form, by
means of which its identity may at any time be established.”3
This
village is presented as the unproductive village as there is a Maharaja and he
owns most of the land property of village. In the other hand, ‘Bairi’ village gives
the connotation of “most productive village” as they have adapted socialist
mode of production. It has been shown that ‘Bairi’ wins the award of ‘Nirmal
Gram Puraskar’ because of good sanitation condition and also has been chosen for
the ritual offerings of rice because of its best quality. The adaption of new
methods “remineralisation of the soil”, “drip irrigation”, organic farming have
helped in increasing the production of good quality rice there, as it has been deciphered
through the dialogues of the character Paro (Radhika Apte). This certainly
gives a symbolic representation of being “free” and “creative”; and also put
the logic that why they became able to cultivate barren lands. They were not
able to do that when their earlier generation worked under the Maharajas of
‘Upri’ village. The movie later ends with the solution of the water scarcity
problem by again the Marxist notion of “Co-operation” on production. Overall in
this film, the impression of Marxism has been used to portray an ideal image of
productive society and also indicates to the feasible solutions of problems
that can be occurred in a society.
References:
1Prince,
Stephen (Autumn, 1993). The Discourse of Pictures: Iconicity and Film Studies, Film
Quarterly, 7(1), 16-28.
2Hamza,
Agon (2016). Althusser and Pasolini: Philosophy,
Marxism, and Film. US: Palgrave
Macmillan.
3Marx, Karl (1887). Capital: A Critique
of Political Economy. (Samuel Moore & Edward Aveling, Trans.) . Moscow,
USSR: Progress Publishers. (Original work published 1867)
Including part of my comment on this, just because transparency and dialogue seem to be appreciated, not because I think the comments I make are valuable in themselves - if they are at all of interest, well and good. Such a lot of work went into this course, we do well to record it even if few will see it for anything but dust in the cosmos...
ReplyDeleteHi - very pleased to receive your commentary on associations between kaun kitney paani mein and marx's text. the environment issue handled in this way indeed does seem to be structured as you say, or, is it that the categories of marx lend themselves very neatly to polarised political struggles and solutions. which? i wonder what is better for us to do or see - films that set out the world in marxist categories and with a didactic solution to which the audience is led, or films of other provenance that we have to work with to tease out a marxist analysis and which then helps us understand something new about the film. if films were already marxist there is the possibility of 'preaching to the choir' , though i guess we would just consider some other explicit marxist films and decide if they work or not. the films of mrinal sen really do, and yet a marxist analysis of satjajit ray can be very eye opening. maybe we need both. in any case you have certainly inspired me to seek out a copy of this film. so a huge thank you for your writing and effort.
Thank you sir :)
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