RECONSTRUCCIÓN Y PLANTEAMIENTO DE ALTERNATIVAS

Such difficulties and barriers cannot be avoided. Ray did not want to aim his movies at a foreign audience, and Ray fans abroad who rush to see his films know that they are, in a sense, eavesdropping. I believe this relationship of the creator and the eavesdropper is by now very well established among the millions of Ray fans across the world. There is no expectation that his films are anything other than the work of an Indian - and a Bengali - director made for a local audi­ ence, and the attempt to understand what is going on is a decision to engage in a self-consciously 'receptive' activity.

THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN

In this sense, Ray has triumphed - on his own terms - and this vindication, despite all the barriers, tells us something about possible communication and understanding across cultural boundaries. It may be hard, but it can be done, and the eagerness with which viewers with much experience of Western cinema flock to see Ray's films (despite the occasional obscurities of a presentation originally tailored for an entirely different audience) indicates what is possible when there is a willingness to go beyond the bounds of one's own culture.

Satyajit Ray makes an important distinction on what is or is not sensible in trying to speak across a cultural divide, especially between the West and India. In 19 5 8 - two years after Pather Panch ali won the Special Award in Cannes, and one year after the Grand Prix at Venice for Aparajito -he wrote the following in an essay called 'Problems of

a Bengali Film Maker':

There is no reason why we should not cash in on the foreigners' curiosity about the Orient. But this must not mean pandering to their love of the false­ exotic. A great many notions about our country and our people have to be dispelled, even though it may be easier and - from a film point of view - more paying to sustain the existing myths than to demolish them. 5

Ray was not, of course, unique in following this approach. A number of other great film directors from India have followed a similar route as Ray. As an old resident of Calcutta, I am proud of the fact that some of the particularly distinguished directors have come, like Ray, from this very city (I think of course of Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Aparna Sen and others). But what Ray calls pan­ dering to the 'love of the false-exotic' has clearly tempted many other directors. Many Indian films that can fairly be called 'enter­ tainment movies' have achieved great success abroad, including in the Middle East and Africa in addition to Europe and, increasingly, America, and Bombay has been a big influence on the cinemato­ graphic world in many countries.

It is not obvious whether the imaginary scenes of archaic splendour shown in such 'entertainment movies' should be seen as misdescrip­ tions of the India in which they are allegedly set, or as excellent por­ trayals of some non-existent 'never-never land' (not to be confused with any real country). As Ray notes in another context, quite a few

O UR CULTUR � , THEIR CULTURE

of these traditional Indian films, which attract large audiences, 'do away wholly with [the] bothersome aspect of social identification' and 'present a synthetic, non-existent society, and one can speak of credi­ bility only within the norms of this make-belief world'. 6 Ray suggests that this feature 'accounts for their country-wide acceptance', in a country with such diversity. This is so, but this make-believe feature also contributes greatly to the appeal of these films to many foreign audiences, happy to see lavish entertainment in an imagined land. This is, of course, an understandable 'success' story, since acceptance abroad brings with it both reputation and revenue.

In fact, the exploitation of the biases and vulnerabilities of the for­ eign audience need not be concerned specifically with the 'love of the false-exotic'. Exploitation can take other forms - not necessarily false, nor especially exotic. There is, for example, nothing false about Indian poverty, nor about the fact - remarkable to others - that Indians have learned to live normal lives while taking little notice of the surrounding misery.

The graphic portrayal of extreme wretchedness, and the heartless­ ness of others towards the downtrodden, can itself be skilfully exploited, especially when supplemented by a goodly supply of vicious villains. At a sophisticated and elegant level, such exploitative use can be seen even in that extremely successful film Salaam Bombay! by the wonderfully talented director Meera Nair. That film has received much acclaim, as it should, since it is very powerfully con­ structed, beautifully absorbing and deeply moving. And yet it mercilessly exploits not only the viewers' raw sympathy, but also their interest in identifying 'the villain of the piece' who could be blamed for all this. )�

Since Salaam Bombay! is full of villains and also of people totally lacking in sympathy and any sense of justice, the causes of the misery and suffering portrayed in the film begin to look easily understandable even to distant foreigners. I should add that this feature of reliance on villains is largely avoided in Meera Nair's next film, Mississippi

*As a postscript, I can express much happiness that the extraordinary talents of

Meera Nair - which were absolutely clear even in Salaam Bombay!, despite what I

thought was a serious flaw - have since then found predictable expression in her later films, which have established Meera Nair as one of the leading directors of our time.

THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN

Masala - another great film - which raises some interesting and important issues about identity and intermixing, in this case, involv­ ing ex-Ugandans of Indian origin. The underlying philosophy in Salaam Bombay! takes the viewer straight to the comforting question: given the lack of humanity of people around the victims, what else could you expect? The exploitative form draws at once on the knowl­ edge - common in the West - that India has much poverty and suffer­ ing, and also on the comfort - for which there is some demand - of seeing the faces of the 'baddies' who are causing all this trouble (as in, say, American gangster movies) . At a more mundane level, Roland Joffe's The City of Joy does the same with Calcutta, with clearly iden­ tified villains who have to be confronted.

By contrast, even when Ray's films deal with problems that are just as intense (such as the coming of the Bengal famine of I943 in Ashani Sanket), the comfort of the ready explanation through the prominent presence of menacing villains is altogether avoided. Indeed, villains are remarkably rare - almost completely absent - in Satyajit Ray's films. When terrible things happen, there may be nobody clearly responsible for the evil. Even when someone is clearly responsible, as Dayamoyee's father-in-law most definitely is for her predicament, and indirectly for her death, in the film Devi, he too is a victim - of his misguided beliefs - and by no means devoid of humane features. If Salaam Bombay! and The City of Joy are, ultimately, in the 'cops and robbers' tradition (except that there are no 'good cops' in Salaam Bombay!), the Ray films have neither cops nor robbers, well illustrated, for example, by Ray's Mahanagari (The Great City), set in Calcutta, with many dis­ tressing events among joyous moments, leading to a deep tragedy, but with no villains on whom responsibility can be immediately pinned. One result of this absence is that Ray manages to convey something of the complexity of societal situations that lead to such tragedies, rather than seeking speedy explanations in the greed, cupidity and cruelty of some very bad people. In eschewing the easy communicability of films in which nasty people cause nasty events, Ray provides social visions that are both complex and illuminating.

O UR CU LTUR�, THEIR CULTURE