…because they are there

The organisers of most film festivals come in for considerable flak on their choice of films to screen. Film festivals, after all, are meant to showcase the best cinematic fare available; there is no place there for mediocre, much less bad, films. If one were to apply those measures in estimating the worth of Film Himalaya 1994, the verdict would have to be entirely unfavourable. Most of the fare was bad or indifferent.

But, then, seeking only the best of Himalayan film-making seems never to have been the objective of the Film Himalaya organisers. The key term, instead, was "representative filmmaking". Hence, all manner of films — the good, the bad and the ugly — were deliberately screened, as one organiser said, "…because they are there. We wanted to present specimens of filmmaking on the Himalaya, a random sampling of what is out there."

It is difficult to quarrel with that line of reasoning. Screening of some downright bad films can have a cathartic effect on the sensitivities of committed filmmakers. For instance, when the great film archivist Henri Langlois, of the celebrated Cinematheque Paris, used to randomly screen films for cineastes, showing a Fred Astaire picture right after a Bunuel or a Renoir masterpiece. It was in reaction to films that were largely pitched in the realms of fantasy that Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol and Rivette set out to make a new kind of cinema, which came to be known as the nouvelle vague or new wave.

Given that Nepal has hardly anything like a filmmaking, mu chess documentary filmmaking, tradition to speak of, Kathmandu was an odd venue for the festival. But, conversely, there couldn´t be a more apt one considering that the Kathmandu audience would be the most aware of the people, lifestyles and issues being depicted on the films. Also, there is the hope that the festival will inspire and provoke the latent filmmaking talents of Nepali documentarists. If it does, Film Himalaya ´94 will have been worth the time and the effort.

The seminal contribution of the festival may be that it adds to the process of demythifying the Himalayan life and landscape. The poetic vision of a people living in perfect harmony with nature has endured long enough; it is time to examine the whys and wherefores of how Himalayan lifestyles are being deeply affected by marauding modernity. There were few films on show that actually proffered that alternative vision, but enough to hold out hope for the future. Films like The Dragon Bride, The Honey Hunters of Nepal and Shigatse :One Injection Asks for More had the artistic integrity required to visually reflect Himalayan traditions and lifestyles.

All three films were made by expatriate filmmakers, which went on to prove that not all Western films which focus on Oriental themes have a skewed, superficial perspective on Oriental themes, as is generally believed.

What was interesting was the divergent, almost adversarial, approach to documentary filmmaking witnessed at the festival—at the impromptu question and-answer sessions with filmmakers after screenings, or at the brief talk forum on the final day of Film Himalaya. On one hand, you had the brigade of anthro¬pologists and ethnographers who pooh-poohed the insatiable capacity of film-makers to romanticise the life and traditions of the Himalayan people. And on the other, there were filmmakers who wondered whether it was right to strip bare the lives of the hill people on celluloid.

For instance, Diane Summers, who directed Honey Hunters with her husband Eric Valli, said that her approach is to see people as people, rather than analyze them to the core. "Too much anthropology in a film becomes boring," she said. Besides, isn´t the argument that cinematic aesthetics have no relevance in anthropological films indefensible?

The social scientists present pitched themselves in favour of straightforward ethnographic films which didn´t go walkabout insundry directions. Films like Victor Banerjee´s The Splendour of Garhwal and Roop Kund earned a severe reaction from this lot. Gerald Berreman, now a Professor of Anthropology with the University of California at Berkeley, and who incidentally did his original research in Garhwal back in the 1960s could barely contain his anger. "Ifs a bad film — contrived, dishonest and appallingly silly," was his clear-cut verdict. Up on the stage, Banerjee was harangued by others as well for his transparent and saccharine-sweet attempt to romanticise the lives of Garhwali folks. His lame defence was that the documentary, meant to promote tourism, was funded by the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam.

Banerjee´s verbose and wayward documentary, as also several other films on view, dearly proved that the dialogic tradition has not reached documentary films. Rather than let the hill people speak about themselves, their customs and traditions, these films chose to tell us their story through the stentorian tones of a narrator. It is also clear that, for the moment at least, most documentary films on the Himalaya are made for viewing by Western audiences.

If Film Himalaya were to inspire documentary filmmakers of the region to present life in the Himalaya as they see it, perhaps in future we will not have to suffer films like Galahad of Everest or In Search of Buddha. Or even Return to Shangri La, which finds a bemused Lowell TTiomas, the American raconteur, travelling through Nepal remarking on curiosities large and small. Thomas is obviously tickled by the royal wedding of King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya, but of what value are his farcical observations?

Easily the worst film on view was In Search of Buddha, a scatter-brained project on the making of Bernardo Bertolucci´s Little Buddha. The documentary tarries for much too long on the pseudo experiences of Americans drawn to Kathmandu by the tenets of Buddhist philosophy. Producer Paulo Brunato attempts todel ve into the meaning of the Dharma through the skewed perspective of Bertolucri and his crew members.

The audience reacted strongly to the films that it did not care for.In keeping the singular nature of the festival, the organisers let loose Elizabeth Hawley, a long-time Kathmandu-based chronicler of the Himalaya, on the British entry Galahacf. of Everest. A supposed recreation of George Leigh Mallory´s 1924 expedition with actor Brian Blessed in the lead role, the film was drawn and quartered by Hawley even though her role supposedly was to introduce it. Mallory (who said "Because it is there" with reference to his desire to climb Everest) was a hero all right, she said, but this was hardly the film to celebrate that fact.

Incidentally, Galahad has proved popular in the international mountain film circuit. A reviewer at the Banff Festival of Mountain Films wrote that it is "one of the grandest and most multi-layered films ever screened at Banff… It has been awarded major honours at mountain festivals around the world." It is most appropriate, then, that Galahad was panned at Film Himalaya 1994.

The Kathmandu audience found it easier to relate with the more activist-oriented films like Anwar Jamal´s hard Call of the Bhagirathi, about the struggle between the government and the people of Garhwal over the construction of the dam at Tehri. Everest: Sea to Summit, an Australian entry on the extraordinary conquering of Mount Everest by Tim McCartney-Snape, who started his climb at sea level from the Bay of Bengal, drew
a mixed response. There were those who complained that it was an egoistical piece of film and that it typically underplayed, even ignored, the vital role played by Nepali Sherpas in the extraordinary endeavour. Others, including this writer, reacted to it as a film which was executed superbly — it had narrative drive andpacked a considerable dramatic wallop.

To put it succinctly, the Australian film was watchable. And watch ability, surely, is a quality that every filmmaker must attempt to invest his film with. For regardless of what subject a film may concern itself with, Himalayan or non- Himalayan, it must interest rather inhibit the viewer.

Verma is Delhi-based film critic for the Business India magazine.

Loading content, please wait...
Himal Southasian
www.himalmag.com