Hustle & Flow is an Academy Award-winning 2005 film written and directed by Craig Brewer, and produced by Stephanie Allain and John Singleton.

I looked at the other reviews of this film, and as expected, it polarizes opinion. Funniest was kathleengriffin1 who seems to believe work is all you need to do medicine, law, etc. There are pimps in this world, and there are structural factors in how they come to be.
Mr. Scott is 'correct' about the pc parts of his review, but even as someone with strong opinions, i still felt i had to look at Djay's life on the terms he had to live it. Scott seems to have had a superficial, non-empathetic engagement with the film, or perhaps he has had as fortunate an upbringing as kathleengriffin1. Make no mistake, it is "fortunate".
All that aside, i really enjoyed the movie. Howard delivers a wonderful performance, as do the others. Somehow, it is difficult to just be disgusted with what he does and simply line up behind his prostitutes and their rights. But the women don't come in as pieces, their characters are animated with a certain humanity and i felt respect for Nola and Shug.
The songs performed by Howard fit well into the movie, and he does not look like a pretender when he raps. Why am i writing this review after 3 years? I just saw the movie, and it passed muster even with my fiercely feminist partner.

“Ritual Sacrifice in an Unnamed Society ”
Reading Medea's Human Sacrifice

“…regarding their kings as incarnate divinities on whom the welfare of men, of cattle and of the corn implicitly depends…”

James Frazer, The Golden Bough

Introduction

At the outset, let me briefly outline the explanation I attempt here. This is a human sacrifice of substitution and fertility, the latter being most prominent, with aspects of expiation/propitiation/atonement. Agricultural fertility is being ensured since it is the lifeline for the survival of the community, and perhaps a wrong has been committed or being averted. I will draw on the work of Frazer and Smith, with additional references to readings as relevant .
At the beginning we are shown the saplings planted in the fields. That and the several head of goat, coupled with the nature of dwellings (carved out of rock formations) indicate this is a subsistence community, based on agriculture and livestock. The young man in fine blue attire is waiting for the proceedings to commence, looking reflective and somewhat pensive. Could he be contemplating a personal wrong as well as its implications for the community? Why does he leave the ceremonial site before the commencement? Is it a formal segregation, while he reflects on his misdeed? In any case, subsequently it appears he may be the original object of the sacrifice, but must be substituted because of his status.
Communion
That this is a sacrifice in the nature of communion, “an act of social fellowship between the deity and his worshippers” (Smith 1889: 207) in which “god and his worshippers unite by partaking together of the flesh and blood of a sacred victim” (Smith 1889: 209), is conclusively demonstrated as we see that body parts and blood are offered to all. If, additionally, we were to impute some guilt to this sacrifice, since a human victim has been destroyed and a regulatory principle must be in operation or the community is susceptible to unlimited violence (Bataille 1989), we can say that by sharing in the fruits of the sacrifice (the victim’s body), the guilt is being shared as well as the benefit. This does not detract from the principle of communion , and even reinforces it.
The whole community, it would appear, is gathered here for the sacrifice. The presence of women tests the explanatory scope of most theorists under consideration. For Smith, while this will certainly be an eventual act of communion as he indicates (the victim is shared between gods and humans), yet in his descriptions of the religion of the Semites, women are certainly not members of the kinship clan, and are hence excluded when Arab men eat together, as are “boys who are not of full age” (Smith 1894: 279), which is also an exception here to his explanation (young boys also participate). (Smith 1894: 271-280, esp. 279-280).
Fertility
The ceremony heightens in tempo and intensity once the victim is dead. Increasing urgency characterizes the actions of those entrusted with carrying out the rites. As soon as the body is dismembered, the priests / ritual actors head out to perform different tasks – offering body parts and blood to the people, touching of organs and blood to saplings in the field, rubbing of blood on a crop perhaps close to harvest, and burial of a body part in the field. One reason is to transfer the vitality (and beneficent effects) of the still warm body as quickly as possible. The vitality of the sacrificial victim is transferred first and foremost to mother earth and her fruits, as well as to the members of the community. As the ashes are propagated, the queen utters the words, “Give life to the seed…”. This is the crux of the sacrifice, the propitiation of the gods to ensure the fertility of the earth, a plentiful harvest, and thus the well being of the community. Let us consider this in some more detail.
At the start of the scene, we see stones painted red and yellow. The victim is made to wear headgear of similar colors, which appears to be a agricultural product that has a red ear and yellowish stalk. The victim is anointed in these two colors before he is ready to be sacrificed . The utterance of the queen (“give life to the seed and be reborn with the seed”) gives credence to the possibility that the yellow represents the harvested crop, and the red (while possibly a specific crop, as seen in the headgear of the victim) represents blood, vitality, and human life in general – symbolized and concentrated in the person of the sacrificial victim. Subsequent to the killing, of course, the various groups going to the fields (the two sacrificers and those following them, the young boy) and their actions point directly to the fertility aspect of the sacrifice.
…fertility of men, of cattle and of the crops is believed to depend sympathetically on the generative power of the king, so that the complete failure of that power… would thereby entail… the complete destruction of all life.” (Frazer 1926: 269).
This quote is significant not just in that it points to the aspect of agricultural fertility, it opens up the possibility that livestock (“cattle” – the disguised humans that come running to rejoin the community once the destruction and consumption of the victim is complete; also see below) are also part of the equation. Further, it also helps us understand the atonement/expiatory aspect of the sacrifice. While the prince has been substituted, he is segregated before and beaten later as well, indicating that it was some flaw of his (“failure of that power”) that brought on the necessity for this particular sacrifice.
King or Coterie
In addition to the rites that relate directly to fertility, back at the ceremonial site a set of actions take place that require our attention. What of the duo that is surrounded by the community members and then spat on? Is this a mimetic reversal of the regular hierarchy of the social order, the taboo against insulting royalty being broken performatively? Why is the prince being removed from the ceremonial gathering again and being beaten with branches? Critically, Why is the queen tied to a stake, same as the victim was? While Frazer’s theory of the sacrifice of a weakened king so that his soul may pass to a vigorous successor is still persuasive, and we can add the aspect of substitution [whether coming on due to the end of a fixed term (Frazer 1926: 274-279; esp. see 278 for “dying by deputy”) or the killing of a temporary king (Frazer 1926: 283-284)], perhaps we could speculate on the nature of sovereignty that obtained in this community.
At first sight it appears that there is an incongruity in the age of the (so called) prince and the queen. Are they the ruling sovereign and his partner? Even if there were some tenuous truth to this (with or without the aspect of incest ), how does this solve the conundrum of the other duo we alluded to before? Note also that this duo is insulted most aggressively, but the queen is tied to a stake and surrounded too (but not touched or spat on); the prince of course is beaten quite without ambiguity.
Is it possible that there is not a king in whom ultimate sovereign authority rests here, but a ruling coterie, composed these four individuals, with some variations in degree of individual authority between them? . This is one possible interpretation, but its veracity is not central to the intent and effects of the sacrifice.
Expenditure of Vitality and Substitution
Returning to our explanation, along with the aspect of fertility, this is also sacrifice of the king (prince), whether at the end of a fixed term, or due to the breaking of a taboo. Let us consider the second part of the queen’s utterance – “and be reborn with the seed” (emphasis added). Be reborn, not as the seed, but with it. In Smith (1889) we have seen that all acts of communion were a mechanism to acquire an aspect of the gods . This god-like aspect is concentrated in the king, who is a demi-god of sorts. Like all men, for Frazer gods are mortal based on the evidence he presents (Frazer 1926: 264-265). Since the “king is slain in his character of a god or a demigod” (Frazer 1926: 282), he must return (“be reborn”), to perpetuate the “divine life” (Frazer 1926: 282). In giving life to the seed, the divine (god through the king through the substituted sacrificial victim) provides vitality to the earth, ensuring a good harvest. He cannot assume the character of the seed, however, which is to say that he cannot simply rise from the earth as the plentiful crop. He must be reborn “with” the seed, and not “as” the seed.
One might ask if the substitution was done on the day of the sacrifice, or, following Frazer’s description of a Babylonian practice (Frazer 1926: 281-282), the victim had been substituted some time before, “dressed in the king’s robes, seated on the king’s throne… and to lie with the king’s concubines”. If this were the case, and “masters and servants changed places”, perhaps it would account for the insults given to all four of the royal coterie, as the period of festival concluded with the sacrifice. This appears likely, and coheres with other aspects of continuity such as the periodic agricultural harvest, which, it may be recalled, is the main purpose of this sacrificial act according to the interpretation offered in this essay.
The humans dressed as animals in the bush do not appear to be menacing. Once the victim’s ashes are propagated, they run in, joining (rejoining?) the community, singing and dancing in celebration. Can we say that these disguised figures represent the second productive activity of the community, that of herding livestock ? At the time of periodic renewal, the community calls upon the god(s), offering a human sacrifice so that both the harvest and the supply of livestock may be plentiful.
The Intimacy of Profitless Destruction? Other Theoretical Considerations
In Bataille, the original goal of sacrificial consumption among the Aztec is to achieve a lost intimacy (Bataille 1991: 51,53, 57), and removal from the order of “things” (Bataille 1991: 57). Later, we find the sovereign who prevented the culmination of the cycle of sacrifices i.e., his own sacrifice, with his power, and then indulged in “ostentatious squander” (Bataille 1991: 63) and gift giving. But the original sacrifice lost its meaning, because instead of removing the victim from the order of things and achieving intimacy with it in profitless destruction, now the king’s intent was utilitarian – squander for rank. The moment of consumption in our sacrifice, then, does not conform philosophically with Bataille’s original proposition, and resonates only tenuously at best with his second. While there is an analogous moment of intimate violence, and the victim is certainly representing the prince (among other things), this is always geared towards an instrumental goal (atonement, fertility, sustaining the community). Hence we cannot even call it demonstrative prodigality. The gains are concrete (a good harvest) and not notional ones such as status / rank.
There is certainly an element of controlled violence here following Girard, and the sacrifice does prevent potentially unstoppable violence from breaking out. I found it more productive to consider other aspects of the ritual for the purpose of this essay rather than focus on the finely balance similarity (yet difference) of the victim from the community, the influence of Greek tragedy and other aspects of Girard’s theory of violence .
Bloch (1992) asks the question, once the subjects of the sacrifice have become immortal spirits, why would they want to return to the order of mortality? Why “be reborn with the seed”? There is the principle of reality (the death that gives immortality is only symbolic, and symbolic for the very reason that if there was no need to return, there would be no need for symbolism – death would suffice) and of reproduction without which the community cannot transcend the individual. For Bloch, this is a fundamental problem for all societies – the vitality of youth must decline and eventually culminate in death. Also, in the second element of violence among the Orokavia (when the children return and hunt the mortal pigs), there is a recovery of vitality. In conclusion, could we say that in our sacrifice, the victim recovers his vitality (being reborn – the renewal of society) and in the process invests vitality into the seed, which is the basic element (literally, of the crop and figuratively, of human procreation) of production and reproduction? The foregoing is one possible formulation and interpretation of the events of ritual sacrifice witnessed in this unnamed society.

References
1. Bataille, Georges, 1991, “The Accursed Share”, vol. I, New York: Zone Books
2. Bloch, Maurice, 1992, “Prey into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience”, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
3. Frazer, J.G., 1926, “The Golden Bough”, abridged edition, Vol I, New York: The Macmillan Company.
4. Freud, Sigmund, 1950, “Totem and Taboo”, New York: Norton & Company Inc.
5. Girard, René, 1977, “Violence and the Sacred”, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, Chapter I-II, pp. 1-69
6. Hubert, Henri and Marcel Mauss, 1964, “Sacrifice. It’s Nature and Function”, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
7. Mizruchi, Susan L., 1998, “Sacrificial Arts and Sciences”, in The Science of Sacrifice, American Literature and Modern Social Theory, pp. 25-88.
8. Smith, William Robertson, 1889, “Religion of the Semites”, London: Adam and Charles Black.

Appendix 1 – Edited Field notes
A shepherdic (goats and donkeys/asses are seen), agricultural community. dwelling in houses carved out of caves/natural rock formations. The community slowly gathers. Red and yellow stones flank the pathway. Some women are gathered, perhaps discussing in anticipation. Men wearing sackcloth, a dress of sorts. Other men in plain black or brown cloth. All range themselves along the raised terrain.
Young boys dressed in loincloth bring out a sun symbol. A young man, wearing more colorful attire of finer fabric, demarcating him from the commoners; perhaps he is the prince. The prince is reflecting, either on his own deeds, the state of the community, both, as well as what is going to take place today. Looking somewhat pensive, he smiles as if something is resolved in his mind, and walks away, through an opening, to a separated area, away from the site of the impending ceremonies.
We go inside one of the cave dwellings, a young boy dressed only in loincloth hangs from a rope tied to his wrists.
Everyone waits, watching in anticipation. A procession comes out, carrying various markers of the community (and kingdom perhaps?) mounted on staffs. Dead rats hang from one. The young boy seen hanging from a rope is brought out, hands bound; he wears headgear made of a plant, red with wheat colored stalks. He smiles strangely, giving the impression he is either not of sound mind or under the influence of a drug. The man we have designated the prince returns, following the young boy (henceforth the sacrificial victim or victim). He looks pensive, downcast.
An effigy composed of cloth, roughly approximating a human figure is carried out. The people sit down. One lady and a man, again dressed in finer fabric to mark their distinction from the common people, accompany the prince. The man appears tense. The prince smiles at the victim. A lady, commanding, beautiful and imperious, is part of this group. She we will call variously the Queen / mother / mother-in-law for reasons that will be explicated further. She stands a little off and behind the group of three (prince, man, lady).
A man (with no headgear) walks up to the victim and anoints one half of his body with a red paste and the other half with yellow, like the painted stones seen earlier. Then two men, one wearing headgear of 4 horns, another with 2, take the victim by the hands and walk him up to a stake. The victim begins to struggle but once tied to the stake, becomes passive, appearing tired. The two men take a log across his throat and choke him, either to death or until he is unconscious. Then they step aside. Another man wearing headgear in the shape of a deer / stag strides up. He cuts off the rope holding the victim to the stake with a knife, throws the knife down and with an axe in his left hand, chops off the victim’s head. Everyone watching rises up at this point, there is a general heightening of the tempo. People rush closer to the stake, some have bowls in their hand. There are little children in loincloth and green leaves wrapped on their head. Body parts and blood are handed out in the bowls.
At the same time, the man with four horns leads men and women to the fields. Saplings are planted, it is the early stage of the growth of the crop. They are running, attempting to perform the rites while the body parts are still warm, and life still vital within the dead victim’s body. The leaves are dabbed with a bloody body part. At another place, the other man who choked the victim is leading some people. He takes out the victim’s heart from a bowl and starts rubbing the stalk and leaves of a green plant with it, assisted by one other commoner.
The man with four horns holds out a bowl filled with blood and a body part to a group of people who are dressed mostly in black cloth. They all dip a finger in and run away.
A young boy with 2 old women heads to a field where the crop of maize / wheat looks ready for harvest. He touches the crop with blood, and then buries the body part in the field.
All are returning to the site of the sacrifice. A fire is lit where the remaining body parts (and sacrificial tools as well?) are immolated. Men dressed as animals (rabbits?) are shown hiding in the brush nearby.
An implement is used to generate some wind and the ashes of the fire fly into the air. The queen speaks, “give life to the seed, and be reborn with the seed”.
The men dressed as animals run to the main site, there is one among them who wears a yellow/gold mask, shaped like a human face. They join the community, who are all dancing and celebrating. At the same time, the man and lady who stood with the prince and the queen are spat at by many people. The prince is dragged off by some youngsters who beat him with branches. The queen is now seen, hands tied to a stake, eyes averted and a slight smile, surrounded by people. The dancing continues…
We see one more scene, perhaps the next day or the same day at a later time from the sacrifice. The two who were spat at by the people stand before a group of sitting individuals, flanked by the queen and the prince, who in turn are flanked by the two who choked the victim.

Appendix 2 – Additional Questions and Speculative Explanations
Who is the god? What form does he take?
There are two possibilities. One, The procession begins with a figure that looks like the sun being brought out by young boys. Second, after the killing of the victim, the body parts are taken to three specific kinds of vegetation – the saplings in the field, the crop (where the young boy and two old women go), and in between these two, to a plant, not as short as a sapling of crop and certainly not a grown crop. The stalk and leaves are rubbed with the body part and the blood. Following Smith, could this be a totem?
An Alternative Explanation of the Ritual
Let us take as the core problem, infertility – of the land and the prince, and not the perpetuation of a state of fertility. The king has died suddenly, and the prince must ascend to the throne, but a fatal flaw has been discovered. Perhaps he is impotent, unable to reproduce (Frazer: 267). Following Frazer, he should not have been installed as a king at all , but the community is in crisis, and the issue of continuing the royal bloodline, installing the new prince and ensuring a good harvest, all must be resolved. Hence we are talking fertility, but in more than one aspect and at different scales – agricultural, royal and communal. The victim of the sacrifice impregnates the wife of the prince (why isn’t she here?), but must not stake claim to the throne, and must be sacrificed to prevent that. He also represents vitality, and must be brought in contact with the fields to transmit this vitality.
This fits Frazer’s conception as well, as while on one hand the impotence of the king would be occasion to kill him, there is the issue of who will replace him as the next king. This is a unique situation that the community must handle, lending a dual nature to the substitution This whole crisis is brought about because of the flaw of the prince, a flaw that needs a substitute to correct it (impregnate the wife) and also compensate for it (substitute for the prince in the sacrifice). This is why the prince appears pensive and regretful, is segregated, and then reintegrated finally when beaten with branches. The role of the mother, the queen is critical here, but not as mother or queen – rather as the mother-in-law of the pregnant queen to be, who is absent from the proceedings, either to protect her in case something untoward occurs, or because her presence is not significant to the sacrifice anyway. The impotent king must hold in trust the soul of god till the newly impregnated princess gives birth to the successor.
Another possible explanation
Another explanation presents itself on a partial consideration of the ritual. Following Freud, could this be a sacrifice atoning for incest and parricide? Did the prince kill his father (the king) and then have intercourse with his mother? Is this an episode following on from the story of the primal horde, with the band of brothers (already dispersed now that one – the king who was killed or someone in his ancestral line – achieved power over others), but allowed access to the women to all, allowing for the institution of family to emerge? Did the prince in question bring the existence of the whole community and its activities of reproduction and production (agriculture) into danger by repeating the act? Is the human victim now substituting for the prince, atoning for the act while at the same time ensuring the fertility of the earth so that the prince can ascend to the throne and the gods preside over a good harvest? Perhaps, but this is a partial explanation. For instance, what of the man and woman who are spat at? This duo is a conundrum. Without delving further, let us just say that the Freudian theory of primal horde and the taboo, while compelling, does not seem satisfactory in this case.

Constituting a Knowledge of Non-explainable Difference

Bataille draws a distinction between that which is homogeneous (hence explicable, capable of submission to a scientific knowledge, an order of ordering principles), and that which is heterogeneous, beyond explanation, unyielding to analytical construct. The unconscious in psychology, the sacred in Durkheim, the laborer not at his workplace - all constitute the realm of the heterogeneous. And of course with Bataille, "the heterogeneous world includes everything resulting from unproductive expenditure" (Bataille: 69, emphasis in original).
Recalling The Accursed Share, only in profitless destruction, in removal from the order of things, can man find the original intimacy which everything productive has alienated him from. But now it can never be complete, because it is not man, but an object / victim that man can remove in such way - only the sacrificed can completely achieve that lost intimacy, man can only gain a fleeting, vicarious aspect of it.
Moving to a consideration of Fascism, Bataille finds the heterogeneous concentrated in the Leader, in his rise to power, and his link with the people who submit to his authority; this authority rises above any utilitarian basis, an end in itself.

The Homogeneous, the Heterogeneous, the State, The Leader
Returning to homogeneity, once money becomes the foundation of its social aspect, only the owners of the means of production form the homogeneous part of society, specifically the "middle segment" of the capitalist class, the worker being a part of this order only to the extent of his wage generating labor. Outside the factory, the laborer is "free" as far as his relation to the homogeneous ones is concerned. A question that arises is, how does this last achieve significance, how does it feed back into the laborer's alienation while s/he is engaged in labor - does it probe this alienation, reduce it, or change the laborer?

Social homogeneity is precarious and must continually be protected, by a "recourse to imperative elements" (Bataille 1933: 66). The State is an intermediary formation between sovereign agencies that generate (one would presume) these imperative elements and the homogeneous classes. In maintaining social homogeneity (which derives from the homogeneity of the regime of production) through a management of complexity, the State exercises authority [derived from "sovereign agencies" (Bataille 1933: 66)], and adapts through governmental processes to the extent possible.

Yet, all this is in the service of an existence that is not valid in itself, as it is not heterogeneous. These complexities are not to be mistaken for heterogeneity, they are just fissions produced by the action of economic forces. But these forces do refer to a structure of heterogeneity, as does the overall homogeneous structure, which is to be defined only in relation to that which it is not - heterogeneous.

The heterogeneous does not only confound the social, but the scientific as well, being irreducible to specific laws and principles that could cover its complexity. In the context of the individual, it is the unconscious, in the context of religion, it is the sacred (in a limited way), the dirt beyond the profane, and "includes everything resulting from unproductive expenditure". (Bataille 1933: 69, emphasis in original). The precarity of well defined, abstract and neutral homogeneity derives to a great extent from the constant assaults of the violent, excessive and mad - some of the elements of the heterogeneous.

Considering all of these aspects of heterogeneity, Bataille postulates that "fascist leaders are incontestably part of the heterogeneous existence" (Bataille 1933: 70). They are above men, parties and laws. They are the sovereign element that is situated above any utilitarian judgment, embodying unconditional authority (concretely, by suspending any 'parliamentary adaptation', they also perhaps supersede the State which was the earlier mediating element. They constitute the imperative form. They are the ones that finally expel, through 'brilliant, pure, sadism', any "filth" (Bataille 1933: 73) that could still stake claim to being part of the heterogeneous realm. In performing this expulsion, they are now the kings, the "object in which homogeneous society has found its reason for being", even its final solution for removal of complexity and 'cleanliness'. Conversely, these imperative form bearers are tied to the homogeneous, as they cannot maintain heterogeneity in a "free state" (Bataille 1933: 74).

I will stop here and offer some propositions that relate concretely and conceptually to the foregoing considerations of intimacy, heterogeneity, sovereignty and imperative form [I am holding for the moment, the remaining discussion in Bataille 1933, relating to concentration of royal, military and religious domains; integration of hitherto excluded classes through a negation of their own true (heterogeneous but 'filthy'?) nature; inevitable hopelessness of revolutionary movements, etc. I would also request further advice on effervescence during discussion].

Could we say then that the neighbors in Gross were seeking that lost intimacy, and found a sacrificial victim who was defined by their identity as a group (all Jewish)? Did years of coexistence bring the prodigal violence even closer to the intimacy they sought, because something of them (aside from a shared humanity) was a part of that which they destroyed [what of the blood libel legend (Dundes 1991)in this context]?
Was the "institutionalization of resentment" (Gross 2001: 4) a principle of convergence for authority, heterogeneity and the homogeneous?

Considering there was a large scale destruction of Poland's population before the event Gross describes, was there a mimetic aspect to this violence perpetrated on Jewish neighbors? Alternatively, is it possible that Hitler became a royal/god-head like figure, a king whose authority was internalized by the invaded peoples of Poland, and this is what generated a mimesis? Was this one of the "modalities peculiar to the formation of religious and political society"? (Bataille 1933: 64) Taking it further, is it possible that the Jewish people achieved that ultimate removal from the order of things by somehow engineering their own, profitless, destruction at the hands of their Polish neighbors? The heterogeneity of the filthy asserted itself?

1. "The Psychological Structure of Fascism", Georges Bataille, 1933.
2. "Neighbors", Jan Gross, 2001
3. "The Ritual Murder or Blood Libel Legend: A Study of Anti-Semitic Victimization through Projective Inversion", Alan Dundes, 1991 (1989)

picture.

A sincere effort, but not without limitations

Swades (Our land), directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar

Swades is Ashutosh Gowarikar’s follow-up to the hugely successful Lagaan, a film appreciated for its novel idea of basing a story on the game of cricket, set in late nineteenth-early 20th century colonial India. While not attempting an entirely serious portrayal of the material and cultural context of the time, Lagaan probably scored with audiences because it represented a refreshing change from the usual kitsch of family dramas, revenge plots or the now increasingly (and already something you could be refreshed from) pervasive genre of “skin flicks.”

Set in contemporary times, Swades looks at the issues of the Indian Diaspora, the return to one’s roots, a feeling of something lacking (perhaps of traditional bonds or a sense of community) in the fragmented (or at least non-Indian) American society.

The story unfolds with Mohan Bhargava (Shah Rukh Khan) working on a global precipitation-measurement system at NASA in the US. Articulate in his defense of the need for a mechanism to predict rainfall patterns in the face of imminent global water shortages, and applauded for this defense, Mohan appears disturbed in his moment of triumph. India is featured on the map of the world as one of the locations for collecting data.

Mohan’s thoughts have drifted back to India, his homeland, to Kaveri Amma, the woman who was his dai (nanny) and looked after him when he was growing up. Mohan feels he has become selfish in his drive for personal achievement and left his roots behind, not having maintained contact with Kaveri Amma since she went back to the village.

Thinking of her, Mohan takes three weeks’ leave and returns to India. Knowing he will find it difficult adjusting to life in the village, Mohan meets a friend in the city and rents a trailer/caravan. He heads to the village, coincidentally meeting Geeta (his friend from childhood and eventual love interest—who now teaches in the village) along the way.

Mohan reaches the village and has a tearful reunion with Kaveri Amma. One senses that she will be central to the story. However, she is given little opportunity to do so and receives summary treatment as the passive caregiver who does become the catalyst, but in a largely inert fashion. At another level, such treatment creates the anticipation that Mohan and the story will go beyond his personal motivations and address the larger realities. This anticipation too is disappointed—leaving us wondering again about the role of Kaveri Amma. She also brought up Geeta, another member of our “selfish” generation, who went beyond personal ambition to return to her village and teach.

Mohan sets about making the acquaintance of some of the “characters” in the village: the postman with a penchant for wrestling; the cook who dreams of a dhaba (roadside restaurant) on the freeway in the US; the children in the village; and Geeta, who is now facing pressures from the village panchayat (council) to relocate her school, which occupies space disproportionate to its attendance. Geeta aims to start further classes in school so the children have the opportunity to go on to college.

Geeta and Mohan have an inconclusive debate about the problems of deprivation, the gap between the village and the city, the development of India, the role of the state, whose responsibility it all is, and who can make a difference. Their views are somewhat vague, and their perspectives remain unclear.

Mohan is faced with a village divided and backward, lacking electricity, girl children removed from school at an early age, children of untouchables not even allowed in school; a village stagnating, some hoping for change, others cynical about its possibilities, but no one doing anything about it.

Mohan emerges as this quasi-outsider (he has roots in this village after all, even though he has not been there most of his life), quasi-messiah (perhaps the outsider villagers had hoped would come and solve their problems). He argues with the panchayat to prevent the relocation of the school, managing (without any but the mildest resistance) to get the daughters of a progressive panch and, what’s more, the children of an untouchable family living on the outskirts of the village integrated into the school.

In the interim, a romance blooms with Geeta, without any of the all-too-familiar song-and-dance and petty violence (“to protect, or even profess his love”) routines. This is a strand Gowarikar develops with restraint and “less is more” effectiveness.

Speaking generally as well, it is difficult to imagine anyone easily accusing Gowarikar of frivolity or lack of seriousness. It is clear that the central theme is indeed the central theme. Though not articulated with great clarity, it is not a cheap idea thought of near the end of the film, while the movie is simply splashed with song-and-dance numbers/visual titillation/double-meaning humour to make up time. The filmmaker’s sincerity is not in doubt. His motivations, vision and politics, however, leave some questions hanging in the air.

The issue Mohan addresses and for which he eventually gives up his comfortable and successful life in the US is that of electricity. With shramdan (voluntary labour) from the village, he works to build a small hydroelectric power plant that will harness water and generate electricity. With some misgivings and murmurs of discontent, the village residents throw their support behind him, and they succeed. “Go light your bulb,” says his boss at NASA, and the film concludes with Mohan beating the postman at a friendly game of wrestling. The prodigal has returned, the son is back to the soil and all is well with the village.

As in Lagaan, the director glosses over, or rather, points to and then glosses over, the issue of caste, and indeed a whole host of issues. Gowarikar seems bothered by caste differences and issues of poverty, backwardness, underdevelopment, etc., and this disturbance urges him to touch upon these issues repeatedly in his films. Unfortunately, his politics do not afford him any viable vision or cogent ways forward. Caste is brought up, then resolved in the most passionately delivered speeches by the protagonist, simply wiping away centuries of history. Surely, things are not this simple, as perhaps a perusal of newspapers every month for reports of caste atrocities might reveal.

At a screening of Swades in Mumbai, I asked Gowarikar about this—how he points to, then glosses over the issues of caste and religion. His response went something like this: ‘I like to look at things simplistically; I am not saying remove caste, it cannot be removed—perceive the [caste] difference, but go beyond it; if I do any more, it will be a movie that is only screened in Pali Hill and Malabar Hill [two affluent neighborhoods of Mumbai], and then goes to France.’

What is one to make of this? I am not a resident of those neighborhoods, and I raised the question. Is Gowarikar telling us that he does not want to make things too difficult? That “reality,” unless presented simplistically, would be too difficult to digest? Well, then spare us the utopia at least.

This concern with “deprivation,” or more accurately, “backwardness”—perhaps there may be an even more inclusive term for the undifferentiated reality that the filmmaker perceives—boils down to the concrete activity of bringing electricity to the village.

The new democratic plank in Indian electoral politics is that of the old issues of roti, sadak, bijli (food, roads, electricity), in the face of the rather embarrassing failure of the “India Shining” campaign, aimed at the middle class but transmitted across the country through television, consumed (and not digested, as the last national polls revealed at the expense of the BJP) by all those for whom India’s shine is rather more dull.

Through the example of Mohan and Geeta, the movie attempts to send a message, a nationalistic call to action—even, perhaps, an exhortation to go back to the villages. It may be true that “we, the people” share so much that unites our identities, and a request for personal responsibility may be worthwhile. However, the film makes it appear that somehow this is all too easy. Oversimplification or glossing over of issues, and a liberal humanist evocation of finer sensibilities—one doubts seriously if this will create anything but an effervescent enthusiasm, dissipated soon were one to actually act on these impulses. Many may expect things to happen simply because “they have arrived.” The resultant frustration may only breed cynicism, and even eventually blaming the victim. Gowarikar’s film has indeed inspired some people to return (16 Indians living abroad have e-mailed him to let him know that they are returning to India), and he must be congratulated for such impact. But what exactly should they come back and do? One only hopes those who have returned don’t turn to him in disillusion some years hence.

The film on the whole tackles a welcome (though somewhat unclear) theme, but offers few insights. It is, however, an effort to be valued. The enthusiastic proclamation of Shahid Khan (a television personality who anchors various entertainment shows) that this film will make Gowarikar’s intellectual reputation as a filmmaker is ample evidence of the poverty of contemporary filmmaking even looking at such themes in mainstream cinema—essentially homophobic movies using titillation in the guise of lesbian rights and freedom of expression notwithstanding [1]. Perhaps Gowarikar’s success lies in staying within the mainstream, making a film many might watch—and resisting the temptation to go into the rather snobbish “art cinema” genre. Indeed, another attempt would not be entirely unwelcome.

[1] Please see Girlfriend, directed by Karan Razdan, released 2004.

With due acknowledgement to wsws.org who first published this online

Could we cover our ears to keep from screaming?

White Noise, a film by Vinta Nanda

Multiplexes have taken off in India’s larger cities, spawning a breed of small-budget films in English and Hindi, targeted at urban, “yuppie” audiences. While this has created a space for new filmmakers without affiliations to the big studios and names that control much of the Mumbai film industry, the new genre is not free of the same pitfalls that afflict much of commercial cinema—uncritical films that capitalise on rehashing same old formulas: family dramas, titillation, mindless violence, revenge plots, and so on.

While this new breed does profess to address fresh, urban themes, the perspectives behind the films are still the same, although the characters wear a metropolitan, savvy gloss. At a time when filmmakers who had some critical predilections in the 1970s and early 1980s are entering semi-retirement (if there is such a thing in the film industry), very few new faces have stepped in to take their place.

White Noise is an unconvincing film about a scriptwriter and an editor of television series. Koel Purie plays the talented Gauri Khanna, who writes scripts for television, while Rahul Bose (and what is he doing in this film anyway?) plays Karan, an editor. Both have a past, and we share with them a moment of their shared present, which attempts to point to their future. The film marks the directorial debut of Vinta Nanda, who earlier made the television series Tara.

Gauri is in love with Pavan, a producer. The film begins with Gauri being fired by Pavan’s wife. This is the event on which the life of the central character (Gauri) and the film turns. Gauri turns to drink, to forget. On a rainy night, she runs into Karan on the street. After a brief encounter, she falls asleep in her car. She does not want to go home— “there are ghosts in the house.”

Karan is the editor for a TV serial currently under production. He likes the sound of “white noise,” the sound of silence, the sound that covers all frequencies and so produces no sound. Haunted by his own past, (about which we learn in a quick summary at the climax of the film), he “seeks solace in ‘White Noise.’ It equalises the turbulence inside him.” Karan’s parents call him persistently, but he does not take their calls, or is cryptic. He especially does not want to speak to his father.

The production of a mediocre family drama called Pavitra Arti (sacred prayer) provides the setting for the film. Out of work, Gauri is called in by Manish, the producer of Pavitra Aarti, which just lost its sixth writer. Manish has hired Gauri to “breathe life” into the series, but his motives are not totally professional either. Gauri has somehow picked up a reputation as a woman who has slept her way up. Manish wants to see if he can take advantage. Pallavi, Manish’s domineering wife, controls the sets. She constantly tries to get Karan to take a more than professional interest in her.

Karan and Gauri’s attraction for each other develops slowly, over trivial conversations involving The Doors, as he becomes the catalyst for her overcoming the traumas of childhood and getting over Pavan. Karan assures Gauri he is not “taking care of her,” something the fiercely independent Gauri would not stand for.

Gauri turns to alcohol again and loses control when Pavan appears on television with his wife, denying anything but respect for Gauri’s talents, regretting that “she wanted more” from him. Pavan and his wife proceed to put Gauri in her place, none too subtly, also alluding to the possibilities of a “fatal attraction” between Karan and Gauri. Again we see the easy demolition of a woman’s reputation by a man, with his wife in tow.

Gauri, on the thin edge of hysteria, retreats to her house. Karan keeps trying to get through. A trite dialogue follows, about time, converting fiction to reality, lessons learned from experience, culminating in the question, “Tell me Gauri, when did it all begin?” Thus begins Gauri’s catharsis: her mother did not want her, her grandmother left her to be brought up by the housemaids, she grew up wanting nothing but independence, feeling incomplete until Pavan loved her, made her love herself. In between, Karan asks her if she never wanted kids, a family—marriage is a farce, she responds. Why, we never learn. The story is told in less than 30 seconds after she has cried all night; it just confirms the rest of the storyline—lots of events thrown around poorly developed characters.

Karan’s own past, which really does not arouse much curiosity, is resolved in the interim. He lost his father early in life, and his mother remarried. He withheld from his mother the legitimacy she sought for his stepfather. This he overcomes, when he says to Gauri as much as to himself, “Winners only move forward,” his stepfather’s words. Both of these are very unserious depictions of actual traumas people face.

They both go to Rishikesh (a religious town in Uttar Pradesh) for a pre-shoot visit. Gauri is happy. The flow of the river has cured her, the “white noise” inside her countered by the “white noise” of the river. For the first time, she feels free. Karan throws away his dead father’s watch in the river. Winners must move forward. Gauri goes on to make a film, about how she became herself.

A comment on the performances: Koel Purie was brought in at the last minute, Tabu having dropped out. She is Vinta Nanda’s third choice, the first being Karisma Kapoor who, unfortunately, “decided to get married.” This is Purie’s second film, the first being the Rahul Bose-directed Everybody Says I’m Fine, where she portrays a girl abused by her father. Her performance is largely unimpressive. The rather affected portrayal of a person suffering inner turmoil, someone who seems to be on the verge of losing an identity she recently gained (and only vicariously—“I could love myself because he loved me”), is quite disappointing.

Sometimes one detects the hint of an accent in delivery, other times not. One can only hope that with time, a certain restraint, maturity and acting ability might be seen. And it’s not all down to her, a weak script and hurried and fragmented development of the character is equally responsible for the audience feeling no real emotion or solidarity with Gauri when she finally speaks, when she finally achieves catharsis, when she decides she is happy.

Through the movie, we continue to wonder what Rahul Bose is doing in this film. He says, “Very frankly...I didn’t find the role extraordinarily challenging. I certainly knew how to play it.” If there is no challenge, why do the role then? An effective actor, he finds little scope in this film and his performance would be deemed mediocre bar the mitigating circumstances—poorly developed character, a one-dimensional calmness, some clichéd lines to draw out Gauri—and what we perhaps know and hope he is capable of. Since Gauri’s climactic moment is itself so weak, we could not expect much from the catalyst who brings it about.

Further, Bose states the film is “fiercely feminist,” Koel Purie’s Gauri is “the female protagonist on the edge, completely out there. Koel’s character is vulnerable, psychotic, self-destructive, alcoholic and yet [emphasis added] creative.” So this is what fiercely feminist characters are supposed to be like.

This is Vinta Nanda’s directorial debut, which helps explains perhaps the visual, technical, even the acting weaknesses of the film. However, we might still attempt to understand her perspective. The story mirrors a relationship similar to Gauri and Pavan’s in her own life. She says, “I had to make this film to rid myself of the demons that threatened to destroy me after the crisis in my life. ‘White Noise’ was born out of desperation.... The girl’s anguish and despair is all my own...but by the time I came to actually filming I was healed.... Now I’m a totally new person.” Fair enough, and credit to her for addressing a context so painfully close to her.

Other comments about the film and the general environment she perceives, however, are more revealing. “In the present mood women in our cinema are being looked at more practically [emphasis added]. The truth about us women is very different from the way we see them in our movies. For years men have projected women the way they want. Now I want to project men the way I see them.”

However, she goes on to say, “Rahul plays the perfect man. You know I can’t write flawless women characters. I only see perfection in my male protagonists. I had to be honest about Gauri’s imperfections. Like me she’s trying hard to survive. Women in my film will always be portrayed honestly.” The contradiction is too blatant to ignore.

The professed gender-centric moorings of the film seem to be somewhat after the fact. Gauri presents her ideas of the new woman, one “who is ready to ask for what she wants,” followed up by a minor insight (minor because it goes nowhere) that the “Hindu Undivided Family” does not allow inheritance for the woman. What Gauri thinks should be the implications of this for a series that she is trying to make more female-centered centric is a question Nanda avoids conveniently, getting Manish to cut out what Gauri may want to say.

Further, the portrayal of Gauri as anguished, unstable, psychotic, and Karan as the calm, supportive, sensible man, while poorly done in itself, is uncomfortably close to the a rather puerile presentation of Woman/Man as Nature vs. Culture—Woman being more subject to her passions, unreliable and emotionally unstable; Man is rational, controlling the world with application of his mind, and thus rightfully in charge of humanity’s destiny, and so on. Nanda adds, “Basically Koel is like a storm while Rahul is a deep still ocean.” The analogy could not be more apt, or more disturbing. Especially with so much “feminist” talk being thrown around.

Throughout the film, Gauri needs a male figure—Pavan to love her so she could love herself, Karan to, well, counsel her maybe. One would like to request the filmmaker at least to do some reading on feminism. In this portrayal, the political never becomes personal, and is constantly contradicted by the latter. Even the other women characters in the film fall easily into mainstream stereotypes—Pallavi (wife of the series’ producer) is the wanton “slut,” Pavan’s wife is the nice, obedient woman who seems to have no issues with her husband being unfaithful. It is all too much, really.

A certain vision, a certain politics, a degree of self-awareness, and a certain idea of the possibilities of creation, or at least the complexities of the given theme—is that much to ask of those professing to be creative, further, those claiming the right to portray roles and stories all too real in society? Are we putting too much responsibility on the shoulders of producers of art, those producing mass/popular entertainment, to ask that? One surely hopes not.

Note: All quotes from the film. Other quotes by Vinta Nanda and Rahul Bose from interviews conducted by Subhash K. Jha, Indo-Asian News Service; for complete interviews please see:

http://in.movies.yahoo.com/050312/43/2k4om.html

http://in.movies.yahoo.com/050307/43/2k0r0.html