Buddhadeb Dasgupta, a Master who will live forever

:-Atanu Roy

Kolkata: I started thinking to write an obituary of a 'Master', Buddhadeb Dasgupta, who has left for heavenly abode. Then I watched his 'Charachar' again. After watching 'Lokha' and his indomitable spirit again after years, I'm convinced that I can't write an obituary but a tribute to the 'Legend' would be a better way. So, here I'll not mention names of his films and I'm not here to remind you about the awards he won nationally or internationally.

Dasgupta was undoubtedly the purest of all the directors after the Satyajit Ray-Rittik Ghatak-Mrinal Sen trio. In one soul, there was two Buddhadeb Dasgupta. One was a legendary poet, the other was an uncompromising filmmaker. A master who used to write poetry in celluloid and create visuals in poetry. A magic realism had cohabitation with both his films and his poetry.

Mother used to read poetry, they used to listen. Mother used to say, close your eyes and listen. Listening with closed eyes, a kind of image of poetry came to his mind. In this way, little Buddhadeb gradually fell in love with the image.

He used to say, "From this point of view, my mother indirectly brought me to filmmaking.Then I went to write poems and saw that poetry also gives birth to a lot of images. Another thing that goes into poetry is allusions. We have to read beyond the lines and between the lines. So is the movie. That's how I fell in love with the film."

He was an important poet of the sixties. Once I had an opportunity to ask him how he thought poetry affected his film career. "When I write poetry, I write poetry. When I make films, I make

films. But writing poetry indeed helped me to create my signature and voice. That signature, that confidently runs parallel with Satyajit Ray, Rittik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen. Otherwise, it was not so easy to survive the time", answered the legend.

Buddhadeb Dasgupta was a poet. The language and aesthetic infrastructure of his films have had such an impact on the socio-economic, cultural, political atmosphere of the society. His films are metaphorical, auditory, poetic. Often obsessed with deeply rooted poetry, Dasgupta films are rare in Indian cinema. Reality, dreams and imagination always have merged to create different aesthetic allusions in his films.

His film carries multiple subplots in addition to the main plot. And the abundance of static frames has made the frames picturesque. The sky is often seen at the top of the frame. Shots taken in silhouettes also created an enchanting atmosphere in his films. Above all, the language of his films is poetic. Like Andrei Tarkovsky, Dasgupta also was a believer in the thought that film stands in the middle-way of poetry and music.

The use of mirrors in visual composition has always played a significant role in the construction

of his films. He has repeatedly deconstructed the form of the films and reconstructed that in his way.

He once said, "It's great that one is reshaping the art of composition but the maker also has to be sure about connecting audience."

Buddhadeb Dasgupta was such a man who cared for the advanced human sense. His films are dominated by personal crises of men and women, such as social crises, political crises, and above all humanitarian crises. He also showed the way to get rid out of it.

His films sometimes remain abstract artwork. Repeatedly he inserted a non-narrative way into a narrative format. In the case of framing, the existence of another frame within the frame is often observed. Either the window or the doorframe is also common imagery of Buddhadeb Dasgupta films.

This was a special art of his shot composition. Only poetry can evoke the thoughts of the

human mind, to such a sublime level.

He was confident about good and bad films. He said, "Good films never talk nonsense. Good

films don't make anyone uncomfortable with unnecessary words and conversations. Rather,

images give cues and allusions. This allusion gives rise to minimalism and in some cases to

missing links. Good films present their subject matter through the use of these allusions."

I asked him in an interview for UNI about his character development. He answered like a

philosopher turned magician saying, "I don’t develop my characters. They come to me and

used to force me to tell their stories."

Dasgupta's films talk about liberation and freedom. He also negated the gender biasedness of sexuality in Indian cinema and advocated as well as emphasized the importance of the sexuality of women.

Like Satyajit Ray, Dasgupta also had a thought about the Indian audience. His views somehow

echo Ray. He thought that the Indian audience was not made that way to cheer his films up. I got a very strange answer when asked about how he felt receiving accolades abroad for his films. He answered, "What are you talking about! Thank almighty, I have a market abroad. My films always sold abroad and I earned money. If I had to leave it in the confidence of the Indian market, it would have been difficult for me to survive."

He once said, "To some extent, every creative person is lonely. Loneliness is important to remain creativity intact. I practised of being lonely even where there is the chaos of many people." Maybe there were many other lives were hidden inside the master creator and he, Buddhadeb Dasgupta successfully survived different lives in a 77 years lifetime.(UNI)