[Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar

[Amit Basu]

Sudesh,
I agree with you that visual anthropologists who visit India for their documentaries are not self-conscious of their "orientalist" attitude and it is a part of their 'professional' activity to adopt local customs. Regarding the Oscar winning film on Sonagachhi, protests were audible in Kolkata and Partha Bandopadhyay (who worked in the film) wrote a critical letter in a leading Bengali daily before it had own the award. 
If the film only changes the life of the director and the characters remain as 'object of research' then it needs to be reviewed critically.
Regards,
Amit  

sudhesh <sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com> wrote:
Reading danny's letter, reminds me of the explorers and
archeologists from Europe who would go to "investigate" and "study"
ancient civilizations – Egypt and the Silk Route are two places where
they went. They took away huge number of scrolls, books, artifacts,
coins and even scrapped off paintings off the walls all the while
pretending that they are civilized scientific secular people who are
just studying ancient communities.

Like the filmmakers, they spent many years exploring these regions in
some cases even adopting local attire, cuisine and customs. However
the funny thing is that they never bothered to keep the artifacts in a
museum in Asia or Africa. The natives could not see the artifacts
created by their own civilization. The natives called it – "taking our
soul away" and many people especially in China resisted. Of course
some natives prospered due to these expeditions but for a large
majority nothing changed. The explorers themselves were given awards
and knighthoods back home.

These explorers were not deliberately cruel and never killed many
people but they were product of a civilization that treated Asians and
Africans as different. In not releasing the film in India the
filmmakers are treating us the same way. Their claim is that the
majority of the Indians do not have the sensibilities to understand
the subject or something like that. Else if you think about it how
could the film being seen in select places (as documentaries are) in
India have a negative impact on the kids' lives?

aarti i am not comfortable with the subject or the film
in any case the people at sonagachi are far more aware and organised
and therefore they must have taken a concious decision to allow the
project.

my arguement is only with an attitude which says- 
"Oh we cannot release the film there, you know those people will never
understand the issues involved"

But we will have a 100 screen release in america
and DVDs will be sold on the net

sudhesh
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