A river called Titas - Ritwik Ghatak

una storia sempre attuale di povera gente nelle mani di usurai, e in dipendenza/simbiosi con la natura e il fiume Titas che dà la vita.

solo che niente dura per sempre.

un film sui vinti, che solo i vinti possono sentire completamente, noi che non facciamo (più) parte dei vinti tiriamo a indovinare.

lasciatevi cullare dalla acque del fiume Titas, non ve ne pentirete - Ismaele

 

 

QUI il film completo, su Raiplay

 

 

…The villagers’ pattern of poverty, despair, and tragedy keeps them from improving their lot in life. Meanwhile Rajar Jhi returns to Kishore’s village with her son and is befriended by the lonely and embittered star-crossed Basanti. Choosing to live with her madman husband, the innocents are both beaten to death by ignorant villagers. Basanti adopts the child, but pressures from her mother and relatives force her to kick Rajar Jhi’ child out, who flees to the city to survive. When the river dries up and money-lenders take advantage of the ignorant fishing community and cause the destruction of the village, only a starving Basanti  remains behind and dies with a smile on her face when she envisions a child running through the fields playing a whistle and realizes even if everything once valued is gone–life goes on.

It’s a passionate film made with great conviction, that features a marriage ceremony with the only sounds heard being the bride’s heavy breathing. The pic is filled with traditional music, tribal customs, an abduction, a murder, a suicide, an insanity and starvation. In the end, it signals the demise of a long-standing culture because of various reasons, such as the inability to change with the times, the fractured nature of the village and their inability to deal with outside forces like money-lender schemers. It’s a haunting and unforgettable film about the joys, anguish and rage of a community that was unable to survive. Ghatak clearly uses the story as a tragic analogy of what happened to the Bengali people as a result of the Partition of Bengal between British India and Pakistan in 1947.

da qui

 

…While Ghatak goes all out in trying to create a transcendent, epic, poetic (and so on) cinematic masterpiece, he does not exactly fail. Yet, I find the film’s angling towards this final, transcendent moment to be not nearly as interesting as the aforementioned relationship between Basanti and Rajar Jhi. The moments where their friendship is experienced are easily the happiest in the film, and it presents something rare in all of cinema. Here we have two women and young boy subconsciously morphing into a family. This isn’t about duty, as much as it about love. Their family is one on the social outskirts, absolutely not malleable enough to be squeezed into the expectations of a heteronormative family. Unlike countless European art house films about two women creating a deep connection, Ghatak never even hints at something sexual. Basanti and Rajar Jhi still say “they need a man” but they seem to be aware of this not as an emotional need, as much as a financial one. Both are empowered by their ability to see through the faults in the society that has left them completely dry.

da qui

 

…The narrative structure is interesting, though not exactly fascinating, and meandering to a fault at certain sections.  The film also feels too lengthy, and seems to try too hard to stretch as far as it could with the material. 

However, one cannot accuse Ghatak of being unimaginative.  Mixing wistful surrealism with the harsh reality, the director calls attention to his mise en scène by having dreamlike, hallucinatory sequences intercut with elemental scenes of heavy rain.

In an extraordinary shot leading up to the ‘intermission’, the pouring rain threatens to overwhelm the camera—and our vision—creating an almost ethereal moment that feels as if we are seeing still life through a glass aquarium. 

I hope more cinephiles get the chance to see A River Called Titas.  Even if it isn’t an entertaining film in my opinion, its sheer rarity—but now made more accessible by Criterion—means it ought to be regarded as a towering work of Indian cinema by any measure.

da qui