The return to community

Bengali cinema seems to have survived the onslaughts of time because of its close relationship with Bengali literature,” says the eminent filmmaker Tarun Majumder. Director of some outstanding films, like Palatak, Sansar Simante, Ganadevata and Nimantran, Majumder has proved time and again that “narrative cinema” is his forte and that story-telling is an essential ingredient for Bengali cinema. Human drama and the rural setting are two strong elements on which Tarun Majumder relies heavily and he brings it home with dramatic humour and irony. His latest film, Alo, now showing all over Bengal to full houses, is a return to the roots.

Alo is based on a short story, ‘Kinnordal’, by literary genius Bibhutibhusan Bandyopadhyay — author of Patherpanchali, which Satyajit Ray transformed into one of the country’s great cinematic classics — and is a tale of traumatised women and how they rise as a collective. Ignorance, mutual hostility, hatred and malice mark a band of women who live under the tyranny of the men in a village typical of Bengal. Their lives are lived in grinding poverty, with no relief in sight. Then comes Alo, an educated girl, innocent and enlightened. Out of her encounter with the village women is born sympathy, love, community feeling and sacrifice.

A reading of Tarun Majumder’s scripts shows his commitment to agrarian themes. His characters bear great fidelity to reality. As he points out, “I spend two thirds of my time when I am not working in the village. The village is where life abounds and abounds with all its poverty, social exploitation and ignorance. It is a life without any frills. This is where the secret of our sustenance is hidden.”

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In this film, he affirms what T.S. Eliot once wrote: “There’s no life, if not lived in community”. Sundry women, once divided and ridden with hatred, leap into an act of transformation with Alo acting as the catalyst. The impact of her presence lingers even after her tragic demise. Tarun Majumder has many national awards to his credits and his films have seldom failed at the box-office. They are never heavy or elliptical and are a product of narrative cinema based on a rich literary source, marked by dramatic humour, emotional integrity and the celebration of human life.

His new work is borne out of his deep faith in and love for cinema as well as an almost obsessive attachment to agrarian life. A protege of V. Shantaram, the master craftsman of Indian cinema, Tarun Majumder believes: “A film that does not have a soul or cheats the public is no film at all.”