Anamika Haksar: From stage to silver screen
Director Anamika Haksar's experimental depictions of 'the people on the streets' transition from theatre to cinema
Last Updated: Sep 07, 2019, 06:59 IST7 min
Prefer us on Google
Advertisement
The film compellingly conjures up a truly syncretic culture, now politicised to the point of disarray, as it meanders in and out of the real-life dreams of the inhabitants of crumbling tenements in Old Delhi’s Shahjahanabad neighbourhood. It’s a world jaded by wear-and-tear and the embittered psyches of its denizens. But its rich history and resilient spirit is brought alive by the film’s soul-stirring set-pieces, including one that features a public procession in honour of Sarmad, the ‘naked heretic’ beheaded on the behest of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. At one point, corpses lugged around on handcarts simply wake up and walk away desultorily, ready once again to be subsumed by a haze of anonymity. Giving voice, form and agency to the hidden abstractions embedded in the souls of the dead, Haksar’s film lends a powerful visibility to their waking concerns without making them objects of pity.
This political outlook was not pre-meditated, and took shape during the film’s long gestation. “Writing is intuitive to me, but I’ve had a long connect with those in this area and that familiarity has certainly seeped in,” she explains. Haksar is justifiably non-plussed as to why Indian distributors are fighting shy of picking up the film for release. “There are no stars in it, but I think people might also be threatened by a small film with a radical point of view standing its ground.” The film’s brilliant scratch ensemble includes Raghubir Yadav, Sahu, Lokkesh Jain and Gopalan, and despite its serious preoccupation with subaltern themes and inherent class oppression, is disarmingly engrossing, even entertaining. “Many who have watched the film are delighted at its rare subtext, the hidden language that we must employ in these times,” elaborates Haksar.
While Ghode Ko… has been showcased at multiple international film festivals, one distinction stands out: Being part of the cutting-edge New Frontier lineup at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. According to Shari Frilot, the curator of this sidelight, this year’s makers, “[pulled] visceral focus on what it means to be human on this transforming terrain [of innovative custom technology]”. Indeed, the film futuristically harnesses animation, visual effects, theatrical allusion and handicraft aesthetics in what is ultimately a visual smorgasbord of ‘trippy’ proportions. It vindicates the seven years that went into its making.
Uchakka—an adaptation of Marathi novelist Laxman Gaikwad’s autobio-graphy—was Haksar’s last stage productionCourtesy: Anamika HaksarIronically, it does this while maintaining its resolutely ‘old world’ character. Here’s where Karanth comes in—in the sensibility that informs the film’s soundscapes created by Gautam Nair, and also in his prescient alluding to Haksar’s “kind of folk”. “Those who have seen my work know that the film’s shuffling, shifting, and structuring are part of me and my theatre, and it cannot be escaped from,” says Haksar, who embarked on this cinematic adventure after a six-month course in filmmaking.
While theatre took a backseat, apart from occasional workshops and teaching engagements, Haksar created a well-received new work for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2016. Uchakka had introduced Haksar to Dalit poetry and literature, and to the works of activists like Namdeo Dhasal. For the Biennale, she worked on his poem, ‘Water’, a stark indictment of caste-based discrimination that takes cognisance of the ways in which water is regulated in rural areas. Titled ‘Composition on Water’, Haksar’s piece was an installation performance, and harnessed an elemental stage design—with fire, sand and water—paired with the raw sinewy performances of trained actors. It is heartening that her new-found visibility will likely mint freshly engaged audiences for her far-reaching works on stage, hitherto hidden in plain sight.
First Published: Sep 07, 2019, 06:59
Subscribe Now- Home /
- Forbes-lifes /
- Anamika-haksar-from-stage-to-silver-screen
Latest News
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement