[the latest in my First Post column about establishing sequences; this is about the first film in Bhattacharya's 'marriage trilogy']
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It begins like a party scene that could have come out of any
number of Hindi films of the 1960s or early 70s. A hostess in an elegant saree.
Liveried servants bearing plates of snacks and cold drinks. A dining room packed
with guests, many of whom are clearly played by “extras” (a couple of them glance
self-consciously in the direction of the camera). There is even AK Hangal
doddering around as the family retainer, one of the staple sights of a certain
sort of cosy Hindi film of this period.
Keep watching, though, and you’ll realise that this early
scene in Basu Bhattacharya’s Anubhav (1971) employs a language very
different from most other narrative Hindi films of the time. A sense of disarray
is created by the use of overlapping dialogues – rare in our cinema, though the
American director Robert Altman was doing notable things with this technique
around the same time – and naturalistic sound. A handheld camera follows a
little child as he drifts about the crowded room looking confused and lost,
negotiating a melange of sights and conversations. Much like the viewer.
We might have been prepared for this by the film’s opening
two minutes, just preceding this scene, where there is a deliberate mismatch
between visual and soundtrack. First, over shots of the Bombay seascape, we
hear a phone conversation between two people in which a “marriage anniversary
party” is mentioned. Then we see extreme closeups of a woman’s eyes, lips,
ears, forehead, fingers, as she applies makeup and jewellery. This is Meeta Sen
(Tanuja) getting ready for the party she is hosting with her husband Amar
(Sanjeev Kumar), but no easy cues are provided to the viewer at this point (the
aural accompaniment to this scene is another phone conversation between two
people whom we won’t even meet).
In fact, the first indication Anubhav provides of
settling down and focusing on one of its protagonists is in the post-party
scene where Meeta sits contemplatively on her bed, next to the now-sleeping
child. But even here, the stylistic decisions are precise and significant: the
sound of a clock ticking in the background, which will become one of the film’s
running motifs (this is, among other things, a story about time and how we use
it), the way the camera freezes on Tanuja’s face as the opening credits begin,
with “Anubhav” written in Devanagari multiple times across the screen. Even the
placement of the names of the three main actors is telling.
It all looks a tad “arty”, but it perfectly establishes the
film’s mood and aesthetics.
Anubhav was the first film in what became known as
Bhattacharya’s marriage trilogy (it was followed by Avishkaar and Griha
Pravesh). What is it “about”? A six-year-old marriage that has stagnated
because Amar, a prominent newspaper editor, is too busy with work… and, well,
because married couples often take each other for granted in a way that they
don’t do with their other relationships. Meeta tries to rectify this state of
affairs (starting with downsizing their domestic staff so that the place
becomes less like a hotel and more like a home) – but things get complicated
when her former boyfriend Shashi (Dinesh Thakur) shows up and becomes one of
Amar’s prized employees.
That sounds like a solid plot, but it isn’t enough to
discuss this film only in terms of story or what it has to say about marriage,
companionship and loneliness – or by focusing on the dialogue and performances.
All those things are important, of course (without Tanuja’s excellent
performance in the central role, the film would be diminished), and one can’t
underestimate the frankness of Bhattacharya’s depictions of intimacy between
two people who have lived together for years (even when there is a fracture in
their relationship). Scenes like the one where Meeta gets out of bed after
extricating herself from the sleeping Amar’s hold and reaching behind her
pillow for the blouse that was unloosened the night before, or the one in Avishkaar
where Mansi (Sharmila Tagore) and another Amar (Rajesh Khanna) fool around in
the bathroom together, may be the closest that 1970s mainstream (or semi-mainstream)
Hindi cinema came to the quotidian, lived-in feel of the sex scene between a
married couple in Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973).
However, what Anubhav does with its visuals and sound
design are just as central to its effect, making it one of the most distinctive
Hindi-film experiences of its time. There is also a playfulness that might not
be apparent to a first-time viewer, since this is on the face of it such a
“serious” film. In one scene between Amar and Shashi, they talk about Bertolt Brecht,
and shortly afterwards Sanjeev Kumar gets a little moment – when Amar has an
epiphany about his wife – where he delivers his lines using the detached Brechtian
method, repeating phrases over and over in a descriptive rather than an
emotionally expressive way.
*****
During a recent online session about Hrishikesh Mukherjee
and the Middle Cinema, I was asked a question
about why the “middle-class” directors of the 70s seemed so uninterested in
doing avant-garde things. I was reminded of what the filmmaker Kumar Shahani
once said about interviewing Mukherjee:
“Hrishi-da was always very knowledgeable about technique and theory, so I
asked why he didn’t do more experimental things despite the fact that he knew
so much about cinema. And he got a little defensive and said ‘Kumar, please be
kind to me! You know we can’t do that beyond a point in our milieu’. ”
There is a different debate to be had
about how intelligent stylistic choices can subtly be made even in a straightforward
narrative-driven film – and how “visually interesting” doesn’t have to be synonymous
with “showy”. But for now, let’s ask a more specific question: what might the
Middle Cinema of the 1970s have looked like if its directors had channelled the
spirit of the many global cinematic New Waves of the time, the work of directors like
Godard or Menzel or Fellini, instead of opting for a version of the tele-serial
aesthetic? What if these films had been full of rapid cuts, unexpected zoom-ins
and zoom-outs, lengthy held shots, or the use of surrealism to convey a
character’s inner conflicts?
An answer to this question may be found
in selected sequences from some popular films of the time, such as the
nightmare of dislocation that opens Basu Chatterjee’s Rajnigandha (1974)
– Vidya Sinha in a lovely blue saree (what could be more representative of Indian
middle-class cinema!) waking to find herself alone on what seems like a ghost
train, and then stranded at a desolate railway station. Or the proto-MTV-like
whip zooms and extreme close-ups used in the “Rail Gaadi” scene in Mukherjee’s Aashirwad.
Or in a few scattered films that were clearly keen to push the boundaries of
cinematic form: Chatterjee’s 1969 debut Sara Akash, Awtar Krishna Kaul’s
one-off 27 Down (1974). But Anubhav is perhaps the most fully
realised work of this kind.
It is unconscionably late in this piece
to mention this, but much of the film’s visual impact comes from the decision
to shoot it in black and white – at a time when colour was very much the norm,
even for low-budget films. Nando Bhattacharya’s camerawork superbly
justifies this decision, making many scenes look moody and noir-ish. Much
attention has been directed at the delicate picturization of the song “Meri
Jaan Mujhe Jaan na Kaho” (one of Geeta Dutt’s last major works as a singer),
but there is also “Mera Dil jo Mera Hota”, a wonderfully constructed sequence
that was essentially put together in the editing.
In this scene, as Meeta bathes, vignettes from her newfound
happiness with Amar flash through her mind, and both sets of images – the here
and now, in the bathtub, and the day-dream that encompasses many other places
and times – blend. Dissolves, superimpositions and shadowy juxtapositions are
carefully employed: at one point, the shower in the bathroom seems to be
raining down water on an image of Amar and Meeta as they appear in her mind’s
eye. This device also allows Bhattacharya to suggest risqué moments – kissing,
lovemaking – without actually showing them directly.
It’s a fine example of the coming together of what is “actually”
happening and the heightened reality of the inner world. The scene allows a
viewer to be directly plugged into Meera’s experience – or anubhav – and
creates a sense, vital to the film’s purpose, of how tenuous and shadowy our
relationships can be. With hindsight, it also adds to the impact of that early
scene with the many little “anubhavs” printed across the screen as she sits by
herself, reflecting.
[Earlier First Post columns are here]