In the Saim Sadiq’s “Joyland”, there is a scene following a character named Biba who is asked to give an interview to a documentary filmmaker regarding the death of their friend. “It’s for Tina”, the friend says to which our Biba replies, “It’s for themselves. Tina is just an excuse.” Biba’s declaration in anger, unbeknownst to her, is a poignant perspective on the nature of cinema and its romanticization of telling a ‘story’ and how it is supposed to be a deed of paramount importance that the storyteller engages in by picking out their camera and flashing it in front of anything they feel needs to be told. While it is one thing to purely tell a story in order to bring out its many layers to a larger public, it is a completely another preoccupation when a filmmaker indulges in an artistic trip of their own to elaborate on what happened to a set of people when they were stuck in a devastating conflict. The filmmaker here is hungry for something to happen after which, picking up the camera, rolls out on a mission to say what they have been wanting to for the longest: to make a film that has never been seen before; to tell a story that would make everyone reimagine their idea of storytelling; to create a marvel out of a tenderly ordinary circumstance. While I have no intention of talking here about the brilliant “Joyland”, it is the other film, I will be reflecting on that is generating a lot of accolades world over for its genius: “All That Breathes”.
At the centre of its extremely well fashioned and manicured filmmaking, it is a simple and humane story of a family involved in rescuing birds for generations. What could have been a story of their daily struggles, also ends up becoming about the filmmakers’ larger ideas of what he thinks of the world around him. It appears that looking at the family and their roots, made him think about all of those ideas that he underlines in the film. And it is of no problem either, other than the fact that, there appears to be two voices dominating it: one of the filmmaker and the other of his subjects. It would still be of no flutter to me, had the former not completely taken over the latter. Shaunak Sen seems to be treating his subjects as a toolkit to spread the canvas of his own larger concerns on climate change and the degrading environment. It is what he interpreted from their story and made his own individual connections. It is deeply affecting of how it makes the brothers look; like soldiers carrying the weapon of Sen’s ideas. So, although I was deeply moved with what it is trying to say and the filmmaking evokes a certain kind of tragedy, a feeling of distaste had spread over me as the credits bumped across. It feels almost colonial to exploit on someone’s lived experience and make it a means to release bubbles of a completely different mind. It would still be fine if it was not a documentary as it claims, for it is unlike any documentary I have seen.
While watching another film recently, my mind took me to a line of thought where I came up with the strange analogy of democracy in films. The film that I am talking about here is “Aftersun” which I found to be an out and out democratic film, not definitely one of its kind. It is democratic because there is not an authoritative voice gliding over your heads telling you what to feel, how much to feel and when to stop feeling it. There is no attempt made to force your emotions to a particular zone. Watching “Aftersun” was like a heavy feeling engulfing inside after the last frame, like a bus ride which only takes you places as you look out from the windows at whatever it is the journey has to offer. There are no loudspeakers asking of you to only look at specific sites or wanting to emphasise on one visual. “All That Breathes” feels like a dictatorial clutter of sounds that is feeding on unclaimed fodder as its own. While watching the film, it feels as if you are under the influence of Sen’s mind, completely trapped within its walls. There is too much meddling in the life of his subjects. Pretending to be just an observer, Sen actually is the opposite, driving the story on his own wheels. It suffers from over-dramatization of a real incident to the point that one begins to question whether what is being shown has actually happened or was it added on the part of the maker’s dilution in order to make the film more engaging. Cinema has that overarching power to consume a subject of its characteristic feature of creating a spectacle from normal things. It is inherent in Cinema to be authoritative, to be in the all-pervading presence of the maker’s mind. It is the power which beholds us to the screen yet it is the same power that can enslave us. The larger-than-life appeal of the screen and the overt emphasis put on the subject with specified framing makes the result look far away from reality and that’s what Sen’s visuals suffer from. In the attempts of beautification, I was left at a two-hand distance from what’s supposed to be a real-life story.
Sen is all game at his aesthetics; he employs a poetic approach to tell the story of a community that rescues eagles as part of their job. Through their adventures at conservation, pivotal points are made about the city’s degrading air quality, how human occupation in the territory of the eagles affect them and how their disappearance will create an imbalance in the society. The film goes on to make wider points about the entire ecosystem that is comprised of many such smaller animals, who breathe the same air and hence all connected with each other by that relation. This is an extremely valuable thought but perhaps the medium through which it runs, makes it dicey. If it were through written word, it would have felt less authorial and more provocative. Spreading it on the screen, gives it an almost textbook-like quality creating a dichotomous juggle between what Sen wants to say with what is implied of from the brothers’ mishaps.
Its only two weeks after watching it, that I am able to find links to my thoughts and that happened with the 30 seconds from “Joyland”. Suddenly it all made sense and I could find the reason for my discomfort. “All That Breathes” is an overly decorated film that is not rooted in humility of the maker’s craft. The motive of filming techniques in cinema is to invisibilize itself against the story; to take its hand and be a guide at all times; to show it the way but never become the way. While Sen’s aesthetics feel just like rust which consumes iron, pulling it back from its beaming metallics. He is provocative and empathetic towards the world around him and it is a major aesthetic shift which he brings along with the film. However, it is still not ignorable how the film’s aesthetics work against the egalitarian themes that he wants to put forward. I think this is an example of the power of the language of cinema, how it can work against the filmmaker if not worked upon with care. There is no blame to be put on Sen for what happened with him is that the experiment ceased to work when it came along. Making a film is a big responsibility in itself as the game of perception works too strongly in Cinema. Its powers can lead to some poignant observations about the human condition without sounding authorial but when the screws are not tight, it can lead to a misfire. In “All That Breathes”, Sen is utmost sincere to the craft but the resulting material leads to some undesired territories as a whole. His heart is at the best place, his filmmaking on the seventh sky, yet it lays bare the discrepancies of the medium itself which can spoil that perfect marriage.
KuchTohBhi 