The cinema of Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray is deeply preoccupied with the effects of watching people from a distance. It is thus in a sense self-referential, engaged in a scrupulous analysis of the mode of seeing made possible by cinema, which permits a close-up view of people who are simultaneously distant, wither in time or space or both. The temptations of voyeurism, Ray's work argues, must be overcome through identification with the viewed others. Appearances must be penetrated to reveal the world within them, supplementing the exteriority of the image with an interiority often manifest through music (hence, it is significant that Ray himself writes the music (hence, it is significant that Ray himself writes the music to his own films). Images of distant observers pervade his films, of which I will be considering two--Kangchenjunga and Days and Nights in the Forest--while also referring incidentally to relevant aspects of his other films.
Legion Observers
Distant observers are legion in Ray's films: Charulata viewing the street through her opera-glasses; Apu lying in bed and watching his bride (Bengali censorship prevented Ray from showing physical intimacy; his gaze is so intense, however, that the girl chastises him for staring at her); the two girls watching planes fly over in Distant Thunder; two other girls looking down at the city in Company Limited, the one remarking on its beauty, the other commenting that the apparent beauty is the result of the height of their vantage point; or the Brahmin watching the untouchable chop wood for him in Deliverance. In all these cases, the films present distance as something to be abolished.
Ray seeks to break down the safely privileged state of the complacent onlookers, bringing into their immediate sphere that which is acceptable, and even beautiful, only when seen from a distance. The movement undermines aestheticism and generates the empathy that Neo-Realism taught Ray to strives for above all. As in Neo-Realism, of which Ray is the sophisticated heir, the empathy is with the helpless (the old, the sick, children, the untouchable, women). Sympathy moves in waves to encompass all those who are trapped in castes, in the corruption of the economic system, in arranged marriages, and so on. Even the Brahmin is required to identify with those of a different caste. A positive example is given by the protagonist of Distant Thunder, who touches the dying Moti even as she tells him not to, for he will have to wash. A negative example is the Brahmin of the ironically titled Deliverance, who solves the problem of how to remove a dead untouchable from his land without defiling himself by dragging him away by rope at night.
In Kangchenjunga the barriers to identification are those of class and convention. Even when walking together, the characters are seldom in step or side-by-side. Toward the climax of the film, Ashoke, the student whose father curries favor with his old employer in hopes of a job for his son, tells Moni, the employer's daughter, how difficult it is for him to address a girl of her class. The only worries girls like her can have concern etiquette, he says, and then apologizes for his rudeness. When she asks if everything in her class is bad, he replies that her uncle is a fine man. Ashoke can identify with the uncle, who is more interested in bird watching than in wordly advancement. Ashoke turns down the job Moni's father offers. The binoculars the uncle uses for bird-watching make him a key figure: They represent the ability to
...
Read Full Article
|
