Representation of Metropolitan Psyche in Zahir Raihan’s Minimalist Film Kokhono Asheni

Representation of Metropolitan Psyche in Zahir Raihan’s Minimalist Film Kokhono Asheni

Imran Firdaus

Adjunct Faculty Member and Researcher

School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Independent University, Bangladesh

Abstract

The motivation of this paper is to cognize Zahir Raihan’s minimalist construction of his film Kokhono Asheni’s (1961) claustrophobic world and to relate that world with (the then) developing bourgeois society’s psyche and its impact in a metropolitan city named Dacca (Dhaka) in nineteen sixties. To analyze this cinema the theoretical framework combined theories of representation, minimalism, political film and semiotics. Though Kokhono Asheni seems like a social melodrama, it has strong socio-political critique of the then social oppressed class vs. elite class. He showed behind the scene of destructive desire of controlling the spirit of society’s free soul such as artist/painter/bohemia by the capitalist society. In this cinema ‘oppressed class’ symbolizes the then east Pakistani people and ‘elite class’ portrays (west) Pakistan regime. Author will try to explain how the film-maker intellectually used social codes and signifiers in this cinema to demonstrate the fascist attitude of the ‘elite class’. The author will utilize secondary resources and textual analysis of the film for this paper.

Keyword

Zahir Raihan, Metropolitan, Representation, Minimalism, Semiotics, Politics, Social Class

Background

Industrial production of film in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) was started after 1957. In 1957 after the establishing of Film Development Corporation (FDC) the filmmaking process started here seriously (Hayat, 2012). Though the first Dhakai film made in 1956 entitled Mukh o Mukhosh but all the technical work was done in the then West Pakistan (now Pakistan). FDC was a great achievement for local cultural scenario. By taking the support of FDC local filmmakers began an endeavor of establishing and creating a new visual language. In the early days such as from 1959 to 1965 most of the filmmakers took socio-eco-cultural scenario as their core topic of cinema. Though those films were not critically critiquing society or human relation or crisis but they threw light on the topic which was a new phenomenon in the audio-visual culture practice. In those films might not be contained crucial questions of social injustice or any way out from that or sketch of resistance nevertheless they showed courage just put the issue on the silver screen (Mokammel, 1992). At that time East Pakistan/Bangladesh already faced 1952’s language movement, local people in the mean time had been through political movement but on screen there is no referential example of those happenings. Apart from this, one thing local filmmakers achieved is the craft and skill of telling a story with a strong narrative which include social middle class life’s melodrama embedded with fine performative art, eye soothing art direction and use of landscape or cityscape. From the beginning Dhakai film had to compete not only with West Pakistani cinemas but also West Bengal (province of India) cinema. By default those movies with story of social injustice and discriminations did not get round applause from audience thus conscious film activists did not stop making films on those issues. In addition, the local infrastructure was established but the technical aspects, instruments, accessibility was not top notch. So, the production quality was lower than West Bangal cinemas or West Pakistani cinemas; film intellectuals often point out this reality to say why local audience was not attracted with early Dhakai cinema.

At this juncture Zahir Raihan came into the scenario. He debuted his filmmaking career in 1961 with Kokhono Asheni. His first project did not catch attention of a huge audience but artistically and intellectually it imprinted signatory mark. He started his career as an independent filmmaker which means he did take support or backup from film studios, because he did want to get trapped into vague representation of life on screen. Yet he made some pure commercial Urdu movies. In Kokhono Asheni he took an urban lower middle class family as his topic. Through that topic he tried to show how social discrimination and financial crisis make a middle class life claustrophobic and how the profit-greedy society does not allow people like an artist to live a spirited life. He also offered a down the memory lane experience of Dacca. It is a rare chance to see Dhaka’s early urban landscape. Before starting career as filmmaker Zahir Raihan was an established creative writer, journalist and political activist. He took an active part in the language movement. He was one of the first 10 students to go out in a procession on 21 February 1952 despite there was a ban on such activities. He and many others were arrested and then taken to prison (Khan, 2012).  

He was aware of international art movement of that era. In 1960’s the dominant art movement was minimalism. After the disaster and depression of Second World War people had to start reshaping, reconstructing every aspect of life and cognitive stances. It was like staring from zero or what else they had remaining in their hands. As an independent filmmaker Zahir Raihan also took that approach of expression. Kokhoni Asheni does not have any straight forward villain and hero concept of studio film rather it depicts dichotomy of oppressor versus repressed character through a veil of two neighbor family as one is a rich-social elite and other is a struggling middle class who lost charm of life by the ongoing thrash about ensuring basic human rights.

Introduction to Zahir Raihan

Writer, journalist and filmmaker Zahir Raihan was born in nineteen August, 1935 in Feni district of the then East Bengal. His family given name is Mohammad Zahirullah. He had his early education in Calcutta Alia Madrash. His father also worked in Alia Madrasah as a professor. They moved to their village after 1947’s partition of Bengal and settle in a born state called Pakistan. He graduated in Bengali from the University of Dhaka. Zahir Raihan’s elder brother Shahidullah Kaiser was a prominent writer and political activist. Shahidullah Kaiser was a member of communist party and Zahir developed an attraction and sympathy towards this ideology in his early years. He worked for the party as a messenger voluntarily and for security reasons party gave him the alias Zahir Raihan.  Zahir was awarded Adamjee Literature Award for his novel Hajar Bachhar Dhare while he was still a student. In 1972 he also got Bangla Academy Award for his literary works. He played an important role in publishing the English Weekly Express in 1970, in that project he got another veteran filmmaker Alamgir Kabir as his associate. He got admitted in Pramatesh Burua Memorial Photography School in 1952 to become skilled in photography. Later he joined the team Jago Huya Savera, a cinema by A J Karder in 1957 as an assistant director; it was an adaptation of Padma Nodir Majhi by Manik Bondopadhyay. In the following years he worked in several cinema projects as assistant director and lyricist such as he worked with filmmaker Salauddin in film Nodi Morupothay and with filmmaker Ehtesham’s venture A Desh Tomar Amar as a song writer. He started his own career in 1960 and first project was Kokhono Asheni which got released in 1961. He made ten films as directorial credit and produced two films. He also played a significant role in raising awareness about oppression of West Pakistan during the liberation by producing documentaries; one of his documentaries Stop Genocide still considered one of the powerful resistance cinemas, he drew attention to the annihilation done by the Pakistani Army through Stop Genocide. This film produced awareness all over the globe. His political film Jiban Theke Neya illustrated the tyrannical statute of Pakistan and stimulated the public to protest against the Pakistani leaders. He initiated creating a multilingual film entitled Let There Be Light, which Zahir could not conclude because of the break out of the liberation war. He made the first color cinema in Pakistan called Sangam; he made first cinemascope cinema in Pakistan titled Bahana both of the cinemas made in Urdu.