The vastness of film history can be so overwhelming - even for the dedicated movie critic or historian - that it is sometimes pardonable for a writer to use simplifications or short cuts. One might, for example, deal in bite-sized chunks of information, while repeatedly reminding oneself that the real picture is a little more complex. Parlour games such as the creation of whimsical lists ("20 best films in which Jeetendra dances in a train") can be fun exercises as well as ways of structuring one's thoughts and staying in touch with a canon.
One popular exercise is the selection of "key years", referring perhaps to a time when an unusually high number of great films came out, or a new movement got under way. In the context of modern Hindi cinema, for example, there was something special about the period 1969-1973 - and I'm not talking about the Rajesh Khanna era, though that was significant in its own way. The last of those years saw the advent of Shyam Benegal in non-mainstream cinema and the simultaneous appearance of the iconic 'Angry Young Man' persona in the mainstream. Meanwhile, the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune had become a buzzing beehive of fresh talent: the youngsters who entered the FTII in 1973 included Naseeruddin Shah, Renu Saluja, Kundan Shah, Om Puri and Vinod Chopra.
Yet it was near the beginning of the period mentioned above that something resembling an Indian New Wave had begun, and this happened with the release, in 1969, of three key films: Mani Kaul's Uski Roti, Basu Chatterjee's Sara Akash and Mrinal Sen's Bhuvan Shome. They may not have been unqualified masterpieces, but they represented new, offbeat directions in filmmaking, as well as the patronage of the Film Finance Corporation, which later became the National Film Development Corporation. All three of them also, interestingly, had the same cinematographer, the late K K Mahajan.
Watching these films is an enticing experience (especially for a viewer more familiar with mainstream cinema of the time) because you can see a medium straining, often self-consciously, to break away from traditional storytelling forms. Consider Bhuvan Shome. In terms of content it is a straightforward allegory about a man who, late in his life, steps out to see the world and discovers new things about himself in the process: the story has Mr Shome (Utpal Dutt), a senior employee in the railways department, heading off on a hunting trip and undergoing a minor transformation after meeting a village girl. But much of its interest value today lies in its stylistic qualities.
Right from the opening shots of railway tracks taken from the front of the train in which Shome is travelling, and set to hypnotic classical music, this is a formally intriguing film with nods to other cinematic movements such as the Czech New Wave. There are many freeze frames, and other flourishes like the repetition of gestures (as in Shome's double-takes in the scene where he first sees a group of village girls walk past). The picturesque outdoor shots, especially in the desert, were taken almost entirely with natural light, but there are also amusing animation scenes of Bhuvan's office life: a phone, the rumbling sounds of "Hello, Hello", a dangling cigar, files stacking up first on one side of the desk and then the other as he signs each of them. And then, there is a sly, sarcastic narration that - in the early scenes - alternates with Shome's own voiceover. For instance, the narrator mentions that Shome is such a martinet that he sacked his own son, and then we hear Shome asking "What else could I have done?" so that it becomes an abstract conversation between two thought processes. (This is accompanied by frozen shots of Shome's contemplative eyes framed in a smaller screen, as if the camera is trying to lead us into his head.)
It bears mentioning that the narration is spoken by someone credited only as "Amitabh" in the titles - a young actor who had, that same year, made his debut in Saat Hindustani. He would go on to very big things in commercial cinema in the decade ahead, but to hear his voice in Bhuvan Shome is a reminder of the crossroads where filmic categories like "art" and "commercial" intersect, and of the many possible routes branching out from those intersections.
Jai Arjun Singh is a Delhi-based writer
