In Camera
By RANJAN PALIT
India, 79 minutes Best Editing and Narration: National Awards 2010 Best Long Documentary: 3rd Kerala International Festival for Shorts and Documentaries 6.30pm, 1st October 2010 Centre for Film and Drama (CFD) 5th Floor, Sona Towers, Millers Road Bangalore 560052 The screening is free. All are welcome. |
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SYNOPSIS
(Excerpts from Surabhi Sharma’s review in Tehelka)
A worker on a loom in Bhiwandi is filmed in available light. As he works, a sliver of highlight renders his form visible in the dark workshop. Lint floats all around him trapping shards of light. “My gaze…My dark…My colour…” Ranjan Palit’s voice drawls on screen, elsewhere in the film.
‘In Camera’ is a rare film in Indian documentary, it is Palit’s self reflexive look at his work spanning 25 years. He reflects on his image-making, and his own personal journey while he was witness to some seminal moments in contemporary history. Demolitions in Mumbai, protest at coal mines, protests against a dam, Bhiwandi, Baliapal, performers, singers, actors, Palit’s gaze travels over the images he has created.
“When are we partisan, observer, narrator or voyeur?” Palit asks about his images. It is a question that remains unanswered.
Palit revisits some of the sites where he had filmed. He goes back to the pavement dwellings in Anand Patwardhan’s ‘Bombay, our City’. A concrete flyover towers high, the pavements are now clear of squatters. In other sequences in the film the passage of time is laden with doubts and trepidation. As a viewer one is unprepared for the hesitation when he goes back to film the village in Bihar or with Kanai, the blind bard. The personal journey seems sentimental at times, disconnected from the core that is central to Palit’s work - his capacity to keep rolling the camera, without averting his gaze, without intruding, gently, never violently.
Ranjan Palit attempts to put himself in the dock, rather than contemplate the many interesting shifts in independent documentary filmmaking in India. As someone who possibly helped script many of the shifts, Palit elides over the arguments, debates and polemics that surely would have erupted.
About the filmmaker
Ranjan Palit has shot nearly 100 documentaries, won the national award for best cinematography twice, and worked with the best filmmakers in the country. He has also shot 7 feature length fiction films. Since 2005, he has shot about 40 TV commercials for filmmakers based in Mumbai and Kolkata.
(Excerpts from Surabhi Sharma’s review in Tehelka)
A worker on a loom in Bhiwandi is filmed in available light. As he works, a sliver of highlight renders his form visible in the dark workshop. Lint floats all around him trapping shards of light. “My gaze…My dark…My colour…” Ranjan Palit’s voice drawls on screen, elsewhere in the film.
‘In Camera’ is a rare film in Indian documentary, it is Palit’s self reflexive look at his work spanning 25 years. He reflects on his image-making, and his own personal journey while he was witness to some seminal moments in contemporary history. Demolitions in Mumbai, protest at coal mines, protests against a dam, Bhiwandi, Baliapal, performers, singers, actors, Palit’s gaze travels over the images he has created.
“When are we partisan, observer, narrator or voyeur?” Palit asks about his images. It is a question that remains unanswered.
Palit revisits some of the sites where he had filmed. He goes back to the pavement dwellings in Anand Patwardhan’s ‘Bombay, our City’. A concrete flyover towers high, the pavements are now clear of squatters. In other sequences in the film the passage of time is laden with doubts and trepidation. As a viewer one is unprepared for the hesitation when he goes back to film the village in Bihar or with Kanai, the blind bard. The personal journey seems sentimental at times, disconnected from the core that is central to Palit’s work - his capacity to keep rolling the camera, without averting his gaze, without intruding, gently, never violently.
Ranjan Palit attempts to put himself in the dock, rather than contemplate the many interesting shifts in independent documentary filmmaking in India. As someone who possibly helped script many of the shifts, Palit elides over the arguments, debates and polemics that surely would have erupted.
About the filmmaker
Ranjan Palit has shot nearly 100 documentaries, won the national award for best cinematography twice, and worked with the best filmmakers in the country. He has also shot 7 feature length fiction films. Since 2005, he has shot about 40 TV commercials for filmmakers based in Mumbai and Kolkata.
