From Atlanta, with love
It struck us like a bolt of lightning around the end of November.
Seba Bangla Library, a voluntary group in Atlanta, hosts a variety of cultural events. One of our fondest ventures is to screen Bangla movies. We screen Bangla films in a proper theatre with stadium seating and state-of-the-art sound and projection facilities.
It's tough. The logistics are crazy, the financial risk daunting. Too many local Bengalis find the idea about as exciting as a root canal, so we have a lot of empty seats.
So it struck us like a bolt of lightning when our planned Dec 9 screening for Debi was sold out two weeks before the show. We hastily expanded capacity, yet the show still sold out two days before the screening. All told, over 370 people came to the screening.
In a word, it was unnerving. Almost as spooky as the film itself.
The buzz around Debi was palpable. In today's globally wired social media, the film rode on a tsunami of public adoration of Bangladeshis worldwide, reminiscent of Aynabaji a few years ago. If anything, Debi was Aynabaji on steroids.
Within moments of sitting down to watch the film, I began to understand what the fuss was all about. I was hooked.
Now let me be clear: Films like Debi aren't my cup of tea. As a passionate Satyajit Ray fan, my all-time favourite Bangladeshi film remains Sheikh Niamat Ali and Masihuddin Shaker's Surja Dighal Bari.
The incorrigible rationalist that I am, the horror genre leaves me cold.
Having said that, I was mightily impressed with the sheer filmmaking craft.
The overall ensemble acting, with special credit to Chanchal Chowdhury, Jaya Ahsan and Animesh Aich, the fluid, artful cinematography, the convincing art direction, all seamlessly blended into an engaging, vivid lifelike slice of middle-class life in Bangladesh, leavened by touches of gentle wit. No wonder the crowds are flocking into cinemas.
With considerable skill and panache, the film manages to create the tension, suspense and portentous sense of foreboding that is the hallmark of a good horror film.
For me, though, it is the wider implications of the film's huge success that is more exciting.
If Bangladesh is to have any chance of success in cinema, one of the most expensive of art forms, it has to build up a mass following of discerning movie-goers large enough to sustain good cinema. The bulk of it will necessarily be middle-brow entertainment, and that's fine, because that's what will sustain the artistic-industrial ecosystem of films. This, in turn, will provide the opportunity for an occasional spurt of indulgence—something more artistically ambitious or avant garde.
Let's face it, films that win awards in international festivals are seldom financially remunerative enough to sustain the industry. In fact, often they can scarcely sustain themselves.
To be sure, I have a few minor quibbles with Debi. The dialogue, while mostly good, still has an archaic penchant, a holdover of over half a century of Bangladeshi cinema and television, of using Kolkata diction. (We say ashen/boshen, not ashun/boshun.) Even our polite diction, shuddho bhasha, is heavily larded with regional colloquialisms, because that's where our roots are.
The Dhaka we see is a bit too prettified. How is it that the loving couple have an entire park to themselves for romancing? The English subtitles, while for the most part quite good, have a few egregious errors—the result of literal translation from Bangla.
I liked the picturisation of the song Du Mutho Bikel. A far cry, thank goodness, from the movies of my youth when heroes and heroines lip-synced as they danced around trees.
It delights me to see the cast and crew reflecting Bangladesh in all its rich ethnic and religious diversity. The film producers did some of their post-production work and music in Kolkata, and it shows in the heightened quality. This is a heartening development. This happens all the time in the English-speaking world, where Britain's Helen Mirren, Australia's Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and Mel Gibson are every bit at home in Hollywood as any American, and The Lord of the Rings was shot in New Zealand. Cross-pollination of artistic ideas in the Bengali-speaking world should be just as easy.
A film is a complex endeavour involving many people—we get to see the cast, but there are vital roles played by others that we do not get to see. The entire team deserves enormous credit for making a film that could well end up being a landmark in Bangladesh cinema.
A large measure of the credit must assuredly go to the producer and main actor Jaya Ahsan.
Bangladesh is already beginning to make the world sit up and take notice with its impressive economic and social progress. There is, however, something more, which analysts of contemporary geopolitics call "soft power." This is the influence and respect a nation gains through projection of its human talent. I think of Bangladesh's wondrous cricketers like Shakib Al Hasan, Mashrafe Mortaza or Mushfiqur Rahim, or authors like Zia Haider Rahman and Tahmima Anam, who've done Bangladesh proud beyond our borders.
Jaya Ahsan has already taken her rightful place alongside these aforementioned luminaries with her formidable acting prowess. Now, as a producer, she has proven that her talents go considerably deeper, giving us the hope that we can expect great things from her in the future.
Take a bow, Jaya Ahsan. Brava!
Ashfaque Swapan is a contributing editor for Siliconeer, a monthly periodical for South Asians in the United States.
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