NARRATIVE DISJUNCTION IN THE CINEMA OF SATYAJIT RAY

by Ashoke Viswanathan

Attacking The Story

Incinema, the story has never been pre-eminent; as this most modern of media is very different from the other art forms, it doesn’t wholly depend on the narrative elements. Filmmakers like Ozu and Bresson have often de-centred the storyline, opting for more unique cinematic constructs. Like emphasizing context over content. Or using a deliberately distant style of camera placement to reduce the element of manipulation in various scenes. Even filmmakers famous for their absorbing stories have often subverted the straight narrative. Satyajit Ray immediately comes to mind.;

In ‘Pather Panchali’, the text does not, in any way, follow the patterns of a classical dramatic narrative; it is, in a sense, linear, but also rambling; and the faint linearity is not always consistent because the narrative gallops along, in an episodic manner. The structure seems distinctly more pyramidal than linear. The events seem to be piling up, one on top of the other until the final denouement which is more of an anti-climax: a gradual disquieting lapse into a second start, a start of a new journey into the unknown.

Satyajit Ray’s choice of this Bibhuti Bhushan text and, indeed, his cinematic realization of the same, clearly reveal his penchant for the disjunctive narrative. While many critics and scholars have stressed on Ray’s ‘masterly’ storytelling quality, it is my humble submission that in several of his films, he has demonstrated a propensity to subvert the narrative in an original manner.

If we take a close look at ‘Kanchenjangha’ (1962), it will be apparent that the text is driven by ideas and not by action; the mood is existential and a feeling of urban alienation is predominant even though the setting is the hill station of Darjeeling. While maintaining the classical concept of unity of time, the structure embraces distinctly modernist elements like the use of a ‘rondo’ 1 like flow in terms of the episodes. A mélange of parallel synagmatic episodes emphasize a near ‘Waiting for Godot’ like situation wherein that which was anticipated does not happen. There is also a hint of postmodern feminist constructs as the remarkable bonding of mother and daughter, Labanya and Monisha, works to thwart the designs of the domineering patriarch, Indranath Roy.

The film is constructed in elegant passages and while the primary plot relating to the probable engagement of Monisha and Banerjee involves several characters flitting in and out of several scenes, the secondary plot relates to the rescuing of a disintegrating marriage. While the secondary plot shows a modicum of development, the primary plot is even fraught with uncertainties and ambiguities. Here, too, the narrative is often de-centred to allow for specifically cinematic constructs like cloudy scenes epitomizing a ‘wasteland’2 like world and more sunny spaces symbolizing some sort of hope in an earth weary with the worries of nuclear testing.

This work seems to pre-date even Antonioni3 in that the viciousness of the upper middle class is depicted in a fairly realistic manner; and yet, the so called bourgeois class is not unnecessarily vilified. Banerjee’s closing dialogues are exquisitely composed: “Here in these idyllic surroundings, you may feel that love is much more important than security. But when you go back to Calcutta, if ever you feel that security can be more important than love, or that love can grow out of security, then call on me.”

‘Kanchenjangha’ is not a straight narrative by any stretch of imagination; its use of motifs and aural signifiers serve to create a polyphonic milieu, full of resonant discoveries. The Nepali boy and his wonderful ditty has a choric quality, tellingly commentative and bewitchingly expressionistic in tone. The entire film has a fresco like quality, an amalgam of different pieces of great aesthetic significance.

The other film that eschews the straight narrative and seeks to explore uncharted territory is ‘Aranyer Din Ratri’ (Days and Night in the Forest – 1969). Here the first half appears to be linear but in the second half, a discursive pattern sets in and the film assumes a distinctly syntagmatic structure.