Two documentaries, Sanjib Parasar’s Living the Natural Way and Sanju Surendran’s Kapila, which explore two vastly different themes — environmental conservation and Koodiyattam — took home top honours at the 12th Indian Documentary Producers’ Association (IDPA) awards last month.
The films, produced by Films Division, use an individual’s story to portray the struggle for relevance in the modern world.
Living the Natural Way won gold in the Best Non-Fiction Film Over 60 Minutes category and Kapila won the Best Non-Fiction Film award in the 30 to 60 minutes category.
In Parasar’s film, erosion looms large over the Mishing tribe that lives on a small Brahmaputra island. They live a few kilometers from Majuli, arguably the largest river island in the world. Heavy and erratic floods in the region chip away not just at the island, but at the tribe’s obstinate determination to live a life close to nature, away from modernity.
For culture’s sake
The documentary tells the story of Yadav Payeng, who single-handedly created a jungle of nearly 500 hectares over 35 years and is ceaselessly trying to save his creation. On the sidelines is his brother Malbhong Payeng, a 75-year-old herder, who insists on living a semi-nomadic life with his wife and their cattle, in a habitat that’s no longer as accommodating.
The tribe struggles to preserve its culture and language. The enemy — global warming — is well known to them. The documentary neither adopts an apocalyptic tone nor paints an idyllic picture, instead choosing to focus on Yadav and Malbhong’s perseverance. “Earlier we needed money to buy only three things: salt, oil and kerosene,” says Yadav, standing outside a grocery store. Now he is forced to buy food because of an unseasonal flood.
Parasar spent four years with the community to fully understand their philosophy and lifestyle. Despite a pedantic tone and not being able to weave a uniformly engaging narrative, the film manages to capture the dilemmas of a man torn between a world he knows and a modern life he is expected to lead.
Surendran’s Kapila, which won in the Best Arts/ Cultural film category at the 62nd National Film Awards, reflects a similar duality through an abstract portrait of Koodiyattam exponent Kapila Venu. Surendran, a graduate of Film and Television Institute of India, structures the documentary around a day in Kapila’s life, where she begins at dawn by rehearsing eye-movements with her father.
As the day progresses, the documentary mirrors the two sides of Kapila: a performer of the 2,000-year-old art form and a modern woman. The documentary indulges its audience by extending luxurious amounts of time to performances and rehearsals.
Back to reality
But then it suddenly yanks its viewers out of the anachronistic setting and places them into a more contemporary setup, with Kapila talking on the phone or using her laptop.
Much like the art form, Surendran’s film too allows details to emerge. He steps back and lets the art form communicate with the audience, rendering the camera merely a tool of documentation. But even so, he composes artistic frames to focus on Kapila’s eyes and expressions, and uses the soft golden light of dancing flames, percussion music, the thundering noise of the Kerala rains, and long moments of silence to create a sensory experience on the whole.
