It all began with a screening of 'Night and Fog'. "Directed by Alain Resnais, it was made ten years after the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. The documentary features the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek while describing the lives of prisoners in the camps. Night and Fog was made in collaboration by two survivors of the Holocaust, including writer Jean Cayrol and composer Hanns Eisler."
Juxtaposing the archival footage of the concentration camps during the holocaust with images from the 'present', this powerful film is held together by a deadpan voice narrating all that happened."The first part of Night and Fog shows remnants of Auschwitz while the narrator Michel Bouquet describes the rise of Nazi ideology. The film continues to comparisons of the life of the Schutzstaffel in comparison to the starvation of the prisoners in the camps. Bouquet then discusses the sadistic elements of the people in the camps, including torture, scientific experiments, executions and the whorehouses. The next subject is shown completely in black and white and depicts images of gas chambers and piles of bodies. The final topic of the film depicts the liberation of the country, the discovery of the horror of the camps, and the questioning of who was responsible for them." (please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_and_Fog_(film) for more details)
Alternating between past and present, black and white to colour, from disturbing images to those of 'peaceful' greenery... the documentary continues to raise questions and gather critical acclaim.
The film raised many questions from why did Nazism come up, who is actually responsible, does something like this continue to happen, have we learnt our lessons, what choice did a German have, how free is free choice to questions around what worked in the film, what did the various things symbolise, how the film spends 26 minutes on just the Holocaust and then the last few minutes on asking who is responsible and urging us to look around us...
The discussions were many.
Taking a cue from the discussions where one of the questions that came up was, what would I do if I was in the shoes of a German or a Jew... we went into a writing exercise.
'Who am I? Who is the One person that I cannot stand? What is the one conflict that I have been a part of?'
These were the three questions that each member responded to. Besides giving an insight into each one of us it also helped to clarify what helps in visualisations and hence things to keep in mind while using the film medium.
The group disbanded with Mukul Kesavan's article "Bad Manners" in hand, to continue the thought process which had started.
Today we started with a discussion on Bad Manners, but realised that most of us haven't really got around to reading it..:) so we quickly moved to"Temporary Loss of Consciousness", a film by Monica Bhasin on Partition. ( please visit http://www.lokvani.com/lokvani/article.php?article_id=2866 for more info on the documentary)
While it successfully touched some, many in the group did not really find it engaging enough. The shaking camera and the randomness of the images used did not really appeal to everyone. However the discussion proved to be extremely engaging, with some sharing how the film touched them, and disturbed them just because of the sense of chaos, confusion and disorientation that the film seemed to pick on. Some shared personal stories of their own grandparents struggling to make sense of partition and how it continues to impact their lives till date.
It also got us thinking about whether it is good to make an auf=dience really work to stay engaged with the film. In contrast to 'night and fog' this film was very non sequential and gave a sense of chaos where as the earlier one moved forward in an organised way clearly making its point. An important thought that came up was that emotion does not necessarily have to be that of horror and sadness and can be felt in different ways...
Back after a yummy samosa break, we brainstormed on what we could possible make films on... and of course it could be a music video, experimental docu, fiction, non - fiction...and anything else... we came up with tons of ideas .. which of course we still need to work on... but it was a great start...
Finally Films with wings is starting to take flight ...and it is so exciting for all of us... this is of course a space for all of us to share our thoughts, ideas, feedback and resources and we hope to see a lot more of the young people from India and Pakistan use this space...
so its upto you guys now!!!!
Cheers:)
The Smile Team
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