One
of India's prominent filmmakers, Buddhadeb Dasgupta was named Best
Director at the Indian National Awards this year "for his skillful
weaving of different strands of life through metaphors, symbols
and folk icons in Uttara."
His
films have gained increased festival exposure over the years, landing
several audience prizes (at Fribourg and Nantes for example), a
notable breakthrough for a director whose films are deemed inaccessible.
Dasgupta was awarded a Special Director's Award at Venice 2000.

Tell
us a bit more about you and your previous works...

Uttara
is my eleventh film. I've been making films for the last 22 years.
My films have been screened at many festivals -- Venice, Cannes, Berlin...
Uttara got the Best Director Award in Venice. I also write poetry
when I'm not making films, and before I used to teach Economics at university.

Did you
start teaching economics?

I started
writing poetry, teaching economics, dreaming cinema. At one point in time,
I was teaching economics, making films and also writing poetry. Now, I'm
only making two things, one at a time. When I'm not making films, I'm
writing poetry. And when I'm not making anything, you can say I'm going
back to my idleness. I'm a great admirer of idleness.

Do you
think cinema is a good way to coalesce all your activities and passions?

Yes. That's
why cinema is great to me. It is entertaining -- it has to entertain you
-- but at the same time, it can whisper many things in you ears
which are very important, are life. And for me, cinema is not only expressing
my ideas, it's a shelter for me.

The original
title of your film is Uttara, but abroad it circulates under the
title The Wrestlers. Which title do you prefer?

I prefer
both. Uttara is easier to pronounce, but it doesn't make any sense
if you're not Indian. Uttara is a mythical woman in India, but nobody
knows her outside India. So with The Wrestlers, people outside
India can relate more easily to the film.

Tell us
more about the mythical Uttara...

She
is a lady from the Mahabarata (one of the oldest documents that depicts
early Indian Civilization), the woman of Abhimanyu (one of the
great heroes of the war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas). She
committed many sacrifices, got destroyed but was reborn.

Would
you say Uttara commits a sacrificial deed in the film?

Well, she
wanted to make her life meaningful, to make others' lives meaningful.
She wanted to go beyond that physical reality between man and woman. She
might have died in this film, but she might come back, as Uttara, or under
any other name in my next film or in films made by others. As I told you,
this Uttara character is mythical, a person who wanted to love, share
her heart's dreams, but she was not accepted. She got killed but I'm sure
that she will be back soon.

In the
film, Uttara is killed by Hindu extremists. Did you mean to make a point
about fanaticism?

Yes, political,
religious fundamentalism is extremely dangerous. It is a kind of violence
which is close to intellectual violence, also physical violence, and we
have seen this thing happen in our world many times, not to even mention
Hitler. Two things are the backbone of Hitler's philosophy: religious
and political fundamentalism. The two together created something which
was so violent that we will never forget the violence created by Hitler
and his fascism. We will always remember. I think it is always dangerous
when fundamentalism, in the guise of politics or religion, attacks us
and tries to rule us.

What is
your assessment of the present situation in India?

Well,
Uttara is a film about my country, about the reality offered to
me, about my time. But it is also a film about my dreams, and about my
nightmares. But then again, it's not happening only in India, it has been
happening in Europe, in America, in other parts of the world. So I think
this film is just a comment on that violence. But then, you know, violence
doesn't exist perpetually. In Uttara, you see leaves falling, and
this shot comes back many times, so nature watches this violence from
a distance and tells us: "It's not all, it's not the end of the world."
There is something beyond that, life still exists beyond that. This little
boy, in Uttara, is saved by those mass dancers, who sing beautiful
songs about love, about life, about nature -- so that is important to
me: life continues beyond violence.

How did
you work on the beautiful lighting of Uttara?

I needed
to have a special lighting and a special film speed. Apart from dialogue
scenes, most scenes in the film are shot in either 26, 28 or 30 frames
per second. You won't notice it, but it gives some kind of effect which
is essential for this "magical reality." It is very close to
24, but the absorption of light is greater, and it gives a different speed,
just a little bit slower. And I needed certain light conditions. Sometimes,
I had to wait. And I prefer wide angle shots. Ninety-five percent of this
film has been shot with wide angle lenses. I prefer that.

I guess
Nimai and Balaram are more than just men in your film...

Yes,
they're allegorical. When the film begins, we think that they're very
close to each other. They could have been homosexuals ... But the whole
world of their friendship is destroyed because they want to possess the
same woman. They never love Uttara, just want to possess her.

The song
sequences might seem reminiscent of "masala" cinema (India's
trend of films with musical sequences)...

I saw those
films when I was 5, you know. I was born very close to the place where
I shot the film. I spent my early childhood close to that place (his father,
and I used to see those mass dancers walking from village to village,
with those beautiful masks, those beautiful songs, with those drums, singing,
dancing... Their songs talk about love, life, nature, about good things
on the earth. I'm now 55, you know. When I went back to the place of my
childhood to shoot the film, I found they still exist. Like every folk
art, they're very meaningful. Very sensible.

Will you
continue to make films combining your sense of poetry and your political
awareness?

Yes, because
that's my world. If I'm not allowed to make films my own way, I'll go back
to my idleness. With this film, I had a big problem, you know. The producer
deserted me just 15 days before the shooting started. And some people in
India didn't like this film, because it went against their philosophy. A
political party, very close to a religious party, has not accepted this
film. They think it's going against them. But my film is not a political
film, and its reality is not only an Indian reality. It's a reality we've
been facing everywhere, maybe under different facades, in different forms,
but this violence, political, religious, intellectual and physical, has
been true to mankind from different directions. So my cinema will be my
cinema always. If someone doesn't like me, doesn't want it that way, forces
me to stop making my films in my own way, what should I do? I don't know.
But I will still be making my films there (points to his head and smiles).
And I could still make my living sensible with poetry, music, with people
around, and finally with my idleness...

Robin
Gatto