[Reader-list] Film Review: Tareque Masud's 'Matirmoina' [The Clay Bird]

[Harsh Kapoor]

http://www.matirmoina.com/

The New York Times
Saturday, April 5, 2003

FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW | 'THE CLAY BIRD'
A Child Copes With Dad's Zealotry
By ELVIS MITCHELL


This is probably an unusual — but perhaps apt — time for Tareque Masud's
intelligent drama, "The Clay Bird," an offering of the New Directors/New
Films series and easily one of the finest pictures of this year or any
other. Masud's expansive fluidity is rapturous, inspired equally by the
floating equanimity of Satyajit Ray and the work of the Iranian director
Abbas Kiarostami, who deftly uses ritual behavior to provide social
commentary.

Set in Bangladesh in the 1960's, "The Clay Bird," showing tonight and
tomorrow at noon, questions the nature of dedication to Islam. It doesn't
attack fealty, but eventually rebukes zealotry by showing a boy's reaction
to his father's recent total immersion.

Anu (Nurul Islam Bablu) is sent off to a religious school by his father,
Kazi (Jayanto Chattopadhyay). Kazi — who once "dressed as an Englishman,"
one of his friends says — doesn't want his son tainted by the outside world.
His obedient though doubtful wife, Ayesha (Rokeya Prachy), quietly expresses
through frowns her concern about Kazi's close-minded new seriousness. She
gently reasons with her boy, and the bright Anu resigns himself to his new
life.

At the school, despite the rigorous discipline meted out by the teachers,
there's the cliquishness and hierarchical behavior found among any group of
young people. The boys initially ostracize the new kid but eventually accept
him.

Anu gravitates toward the one boy who will never be accepted: the oddball
Rokon (Russell Farazi). Rokon can't suppress his enthusiasms, and he hasn't
learned how to play up to the teachers by pretending to go along with the
program, as the other boys have; they've already picked up the duplicity
that adults often mistake for maturity. (They have to conceal much of
themselves, since they're allowed to play only when practicing martial
arts.)

The loss of innocence is only one of the motifs here. Anu's sister becomes
sick and suffers even more when Kazi refuses to let his wife give her
antibiotics. He's wedded to homeopathy and prayer as treatment.
Rokon is constantly rebuked by almost everyone. At one point, he's punished
by a teacher for using his left hand to write; it's thought to be
disrespectful. But Rokon keeps to his ways; his naturalness represents
sacrifice, the biggest casualty of zealotry. He loves his imaginary friends
and runs off to hiding places where he snacks on desserts that he claims to
have received from a nonexistent playmate.
The school does have one teacher not bound to rigid ideology: Ibrahim, who
recognizes Anu's decency and takes as much interest in Rokon's well-being as
he can under the circumstances. But it's hard when Rokon is plagued by a
buzzing in his ears, occurring at the worst times, as when one of the
instructors delivers a grim sermon on the conviction needed for Islam.

Masud's sensitivity gives the film a pungent emotional clarity; he
recognizes that naïveté isn't a province only of childhood. Kazi's a naif,
too, and learns the hard way that following a path without independent
thought is a fool's errand. He's ultimately devastated when he learns of the
civil war and Muslims attacking other Muslims: the revolution is coming and
it claims Kazi's way of life. His brother, the bespectacled, curious Milon,
can smell change in the winds and waxes rhapsodic about it. (He slips the
medicine for Anu's sister to Ayesha and gets scolded by Kazi for his love of
"Hindu nonsense.")

"The Clay Bird" is not without a sense of humor. Milon has his strongly held
beliefs, too; he's devoted to Communism and its ideals. Such a need connects
these men as brothers, and it's gently mocked: "Kazi's homeopathy and your
Marx party, both came from Germany," one of Milon's pals says. It's also
evident that Masud loves all his characters, even the small-minded ones —
the sign of a real director. It's no small achievement to make a picture
that extols the necessity for clear, free thought while dramatizing the
barriers that challenge such a capacity.

THE CLAY BIRD
Directed by Tareque Masud; written (in Bengali, with English subtitles) by
Mr. Masud and Catherine Masud; director of photography, Sudheer Palsane;
edited and produced by Ms. Masud; music by Moushumi Bhowmik; art directors,
Kazi Rakib and Sylvain Nahmias. Running time: 98 minutes. This film is not
rated. Shown with a 10-minute short, Nilesh Patel's "Love Supreme," tonight
at 9 p.m. and Sunday at noon at the MoMA Gramercy, 127 East 23rd Street,
between Lexington and Third Avenues, as part of the 32nd New Directors/New
Films series of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the department of
film and media of the Museum of Modern Art.
WITH: Nurul Islam Bablu (Anu), Russell Farazi (Rokon), Jayanto Chattopadhyay
(Kazi) and Rokeya Prachy (Ayesha).


"MATIR MOINA" (THE CLAY BIRD) PREMIERES IN NEW YORK

“Matir Moina”(The Clay Bird), an autobiographical first feature from
Bangladesh, had its New York premiere April 5th and 6th at the New
Directors/New Films festival organized by the film society of Lincoln Center
and the Museum of Modern Art.  The much acclaimed film, which won the
International Critics’ Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002, was
Bangladesh’s first ever official entry to the Academy Awards competition. 
Both shows of “Matir Moina” were sold out two weeks in advance of the
screenings at the Gramercy Theatre in the heart of Manhattan.  In his
introductory address to the audience, director Tareque Masud expressed his
happiness at being able to show the film in his “second home” New York City,
where he and his wife Catherine lived for five years in the early 90’s. He
received full applause from the audience when he added, “But this is also a
very sad time to show this film, when so many innocents are being victimized
by a war that is unnecessarily widening the divide between the West and the
Muslim world.”

In the Saturday April 5th issue of the New York Times, the film was praised
in a review by well-known critic Elvis Mitchell, who called it “easily one
of the finest films of this year or any other” and compared its “expansive
fluidity” to the work of Satyajit Ray and Abbas Kiarostami.  Mitchell also
pointed out that that the film “doesn’t attack fealty, but eventually
rebukes zealotry” by showing a boy’s reaction to his father’s new found
religious fervor.

The film screenings were followed by a lively and extended question and
answer session with the audience.  The main actress of the film, Rokeya
Prachy, was also present on the occasion.