Manu Chakravarthy at a Master Class in 17th Bengaluru International Film Festival
Bengaluru International Film Festival: ‘The state of oppression threatens both filmmakers and critics. This is a civilizational crisis. Filmmakers and critics who believe in artistic freedom, autonomy of art, are terrorized and quite often brutally oppressed’ said National Award-winning critic Manu Chakravathy.
Professor Manu Chakravarthy was speaking during a panel discussion on ‘FIPRESCI at 100 – Film Criticism: The Way Ahead (Challenges and Possibilities) held at the 17the Bengaluru International Film Festival attended by FIPRESCI Indian president V K Joseph, critics Rekha Deshapande, Laurentu Bratin and moderated by Vidyashankar.
‘Two recent films including ‘Uri’ and ‘Durandhar’ were ugly and horrible. It only fosters hatred and bigotry and claims there’s always an enemy. Films like ‘Durandhar’ gets away by making money. The saddest part is, whoever questions these films, is termed as an urban naxal, anti-national, who hates India. And the maker of the film says, get out of India, my motherland. As if those who ask for compassion, peace, love, hatred is against this country. Patriotism has become the copyright, the patent of only a few. But look at the other Hindi film ‘Ikkis’. The film tells that there is no enemy and we are all enemies to each other’ said Manu Chakravarthy.
Manu Chakravarthy questioned where is this personal animosity here. ‘These are examples that as critics, we need to be careful when we turn to. Are we interested in building a future, a world of care and compassion for the innocent? Or are we, in the name of nationalism, going to increase bigotry and communism? Palestinian films including ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’, ‘Palestine 36’ and others were never allowed to be screened. I challenge anybody to show any ill-willed animosity in any single frame or single shot of any of these films’ challenged Manu Chakravarthy.
The professor urged the critics to support these films, saying that, ‘now these are things that critics, if we choose films like this, the business of criticism, the business of serious critics is to support these films. To write all these films, to do their best to eliminate phases of terror, phases of great monstrosities’ said Manu Chakravarthy.
Rekha Deshapande said that all the reviews are often mistaken for criticism. ‘Criticism is something very different, complex and objective whereas review is always subjective. For criticism you need insight into the cinema. You need insight into the relationship of cinema as an art form with other arts. But nobody bothers about that’ said Rekha Deshapande.
FIPRESCI Indian president Joseph said that a film critic should contextualize the cinema. ‘When we see a cinema, we cannot just watch the idea, we should see where is the cinema, in which historical context it starts. What cultural message it gives and how the images represent the meanings of the film’ said Joseph.
