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Chronicle of
an Amnesiac
the transit to nonexistence- globalization and an old cosmopolitan
***John Abraham National Award for Best
Documentary,
SIGN
2007
The film meets a few characters who are in the process of disappearing into the domain of amnesia.
Someone who started his journey as a freedom fighter during the British India period; later got disillusioned & joined the communist party. In due course of time found him beyond the bounds of dialectic materialism, drawn towards spiritualism and became worshiper of the mother goddess. Then was diagnosed with cancer, and believed to have received the recipe of his cure in his dream. He is 92, living alone, earning his daily bread, a down & out living chronicle of the changing city…
A man, installation engineer by profession, fascinated by abstract sounds, chases them in the city, makes music with it. He carries a small MP3 recorder. He is the guy who found the previous character. What is he chasing in him?
A guy rents out very old and often obscure books to a very selective reader at the city’s premiere art café. He is practicing this for more than thirty years, delighted being associated with Bengali literature in his own way. Outside his city of books, the knowledge base is slowly shifting from the print media to the virtual.
A man and his two monkeys, street performers, Banderwallah. This practice is banned now, omnipresent in our childhood memory. The Banderwallah finds himself inside a shopping mall at the after hours, amidst the sleeping shops under the dreamy lights and the net-shutters.
What are we searching in the characters? Are we trying to trace a culture once thriving, through its obscure end of present time? How can one film the past? Recording eternally belongs to the time present.
The film looks through the viewfinder of a century old box camera, Nocturnal images of the city float through.
The Banderwallah and his monkeys walk down a long flyover.
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commissioned by NHK
in association with SRFTI, Kolkata
written & directed by anirban
produced & cinematography amlan
sound sanjiv, bijoy & subhodeep
edit sankhajit
with amiyo, bula, paritosh, fakir
&
the city of Kolkata
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