Across the Burning Track
A film by Moinak Biswas
(HD, 25 mins, with English subtitles)
The film, originally involving two screens and four channels of sound, works through Ritwik Ghatak’s autobiographical final film
Jukti, Takko ar Gappo (‘Arguments and Stories’, 1974). It was commissioned for the 11th Shanghai Biennale, 2016.
In one stream, a reconstruction of the film is presented, which tells the story of an intellectual (Nilakantha/Ghatak) caught in the turmoil of the 1970s, marked by the Bangladesh Liberation War and the Naxalbari movement.
Nilakantha is a wandering figure killed by a stray bullet at the end of the film.
The other stream involves the writer Manik Bandyopadhyay, and the playwright Bijan Bhattacharya who acts in the film. Manik and Bijan were representative figures of the radical culture of the 1940s.
Two moments of great misery and creativity, 1940s and 1970s, syncopate each other. Moving and still images, texts and voices are presented that spectrally connect these moments with other times and lives.
Ghatak’s
JuktiTakko, a perilously autobiographical narrative, sets in motion flows touching the shores of a distant present.
Moinak Biswas is Professor of Film Studies and Coordinator of The Media Lab at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He writes on Indian cinema and culture. Among his publications is
Apu and After, Revisiting Ray’s Cinema. He made the award winning Bengali feature film
Sthaniya Sambaad (‘Spring in the Colony’) as writer and co-director in 2010.
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