A Potpourri of Vestiges Review
By Murtaza Ali Khan
MUBI
is known for bringing cinematic classics back in limelight. The platform has
started the New Year 2021 by showcasing a rare gem of Indian cinema, the 1969
classic by the legendary Mrinal Sen, for cinephiles in India as well as abroad.
Sen, who was one of the leading filmmakers of India’s Parallel Cinema, made
Bhuvan Shome with a shoestring budget. Little did he know at the time that over
the years Bhuvan Shome will become synonymous with his name. The film tells the
story of the isolated life of its eponymous character, Bhuvan Shome, which is
essayed by the great Utpal Dutt. Shome Sahab, as he is called by the narrator
(Amitabh Bachchan making his film debut as the film’s voice narrator) is a Bengali
bureaucrat. He is lonely widower and a strict disciplinarian who has spent his
life working for the Indian Railways. He has zero tolerance for the corrupt or
the incompetent. As informed by the narrator, once he even went to the extent
of firing his own son. Bhuvan Shome is widely regarded by film critics and
scholars across the world as an important work of cinema. Let’s try and examine
its deceptively simple narrative.
At the most basic level, Bhuvan
Shome can be described as a film about a man’s bird hunting adventure on the
shores of Saurashtra—a flourishing region located on the Arabian Sea coast of
the Indian state of Gujarat. Bored by his monotonous office routine, one day
Shome Sahab decides to go on a bird hunting trip to Saurashtra. The theme of
hunting is often associated with the elite, upper class people trying to
overcome their boredom. The bird hunting expedition in Bhuvan Shome harks to
Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game (1939).
At another level, the film
can be seen as a powerful character study of a strict bureaucrat who finds it
difficult to survive the moment he steps outside the comforts of his cocooned
existence. The film can also be looked upon as a treatise on human solitude and
longing for companionship. Doomed to live in solitude, Shome Sahab, trapped in
an alien land, quickly realizes that he has inadvertently pushed himself a bit
too far out of his comfort zone. It soon becomes a journey of self-realization
for Shome Sahab who gradually learns to appreciate the importance of human
company.
Yet another way to approach Bhuvan
Shome is as a social commentary on the great rural-urban divide in India. While
a powerful bureaucrat like Shome Sahab living in the city is cruel to everyone
around him, the people in the village are friendly and helpful even to the
strangers. Bhuvan Shome is also a film about human camaraderie and trust. How a
beautiful village girl named Gauri (essayed by Suhasini Mulay) leaves
everything aside to help a total stranger whom she sees as her guest. How Shome
Sahab begins to blindly trust the young girl during his bird hunting
expedition. Now, some have even commented on the undercurrent of eroticism that
runs through the movie. While it is quite obvious that Shome Sahab grows fond
of the young village girl, there is little in the movie that even obliquely
suggests the possibility of any sexual attraction.
Mrinal Sen’s imaginative
direction is brilliantly complemented by K. K. Mahajan’s breathtaking black
& white cinematography which gives the movie its soul. Mahajan brilliantly
captures the vast expanses of Gujarat’s desert land, even reminding one of the
majestic desert scenes from David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962). The extreme
close-ups reveal a lot about the characters even before we get to hear them
talk. The overhead shots of moving railway tracks, horse/bullock carts are used
to accentuate the toil associated with travel.
The editing techniques
employed in the film are also quite clever. In addition to a couple of
impressive montage sequences, the movie uses a lot of jump cuts and
freeze-frames. There is a beautiful sequence in Bhuvan Shome which deserves a
special mention wherein Gauri pretends to be on a swing and the camera strategically
zooms in and out on her, imitating the swing action. Vijay Raghav Rao’s musical
pieces immensely add to the experience.
A major highlight of Bhuvan
Shome is Utpal Dutt’s unforgettable performance. Anyone who aspires to become
an actor ought to study his performance in the movie very closely. A part as
complex as Shome Sahab requires an actor to blend ruthlessness, vulnerability,
and tenderness in equal parts, and, Dutt, of course, is up to the task. His
eyes, facial expressions and body gestures together communicate a lot more than
his verbal delivery. A lesser actor would have made the character look like
some caricature, but, Dutt, to his credit, breathes life into it. Also, Suhasini
Mulay essays the part of a rustic belle beautifully and her amiable character
serves as the perfect foil for Dutt’s mean bureaucrat.
Bhuvan Shome is an
undisputed masterwork of cinema and a testament to Mrinal Sen’s iconoclastic
genius. It’s a kind of cinema that’s free from the conventions of plot and
structure. Here is a film that can be enjoyed at so many different levels if
one is willing to indulge.
A version of this article was first published in The Daily Guardian.
Readers, please feel free to share your opinion by leaving your comments. As always your valuable thoughts are highly appreciated!
People who liked this also liked...
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for sharing for valuable opinion. We would be delighted to have you back.