FilmIndia (1948)

SUBSCRIPTION RATES The annual subscription, for 12 issues of "filmindia". from any month is : INLAND Rs. 24/FOREIGN: Shillings 50/ Subscriptlon is accepted only for a collective period of 12 months and not for a smaller period. Subscription money should be remitted only by Money Order or by Postal Order but not by cheques. V. P. P.s will not be sent. filmindia PROPRIETORS FILMINDIA PUBLICATIONS LTD 55. SIR PHIPOZESHAH MEHTA ROAD, FORT, BOMBAY Telephone . 26752 Editor: BABURAO PATEL Vol. XIV. JUNE 1948 No. 6. ADVERTISEMENT RATES: The advertisement rates are as follows : Per Insertion Full Page inside Rs. Half Page inside Rs. J Page inside Rs. • Page inside Rs. 2nd & 3rd Cover Rs. 4th Cover Rs. I st Cover 400 210 120 ISO 500 600 Rs. 1.000 The cost of the advertisement should be submitted in advance with the order. The advertisement will be subject to the terms and conditions of our usual contract. 'Pocumenta'iij O't Pefjamation ? tfovt of) (India. -Help* % Aiab Tilml ~To Tell ~The Wotid £/ow ' Uncli/iliied ' l/l/e -f)ze / When it was first reported in the press that aul Zils. a young German technician, had been enrusted with the task of producing the three documentary films for training Indian social weltare •orkers, which the Film Department of the JNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific ad Cultural Organisation) was making for, and at ie request of, the Government of India, this joural alone had the foresight to warn against the anger of getting a non-Indian to direct such films lich were concerned with the very core of Indian llage life. In the "Bombay Calling" for March, ur contributor "JUDAS" wrote: — the films arc to be addressed to the millions of illiterate mothers atid teachers in the villcges. tcho are conversant only with any of the provincial languages. A completely INDIAN approach and an understanding of Indian psychology are. therefore, necessary for any one uho undertakes the production of these films [only) Indian technicians with imagination can bring to the task of making films on such subjects an Indian approach and an instinctive understanding of the Indian psychology and the Indian way of life". Now we have seen the films and our worst :ars have been justified. Not that the films are .'clinically bad, but because they are, as we feared, epical and glaring examples of a foreigner's-eyeiew of India — that patronising, condescending attude in which contempt, pity and a morbid pleaire at pointing the sore spots of Oriental life are 1 mixed, the same attitude which characterised ich films as "Guntjadin" and "Drums". The "naves" are dirty, filthy, uneducated, illiterate, unygienic, hopeless'y backward. Rut they are not bad, really, being child-like at heart. They can r saved and redeemed by Sahib loge, their missions ad their medicines, by white-i ilksari-clad Parsi icial workers from Bombay— and by blonde Gerlans like Paul Zils! That, to me, seems to be the »eme and substance of the three documentaries, Mother", "Child" and "Community" for which the people and the Government of India have paid through the vast amount we contribute every year to the UNESCO, without getting very much "in return. "So Cute, My dean!" At the .Metro preview, the Society ladies predominated and found the films "so cute, my deah" —a compliment which might have been meant for the producer, for all we know. But film critics are not likely to be impressed by the good looks or white skin of a producer or by the swanky invitation cards. A film— be it a feature or a documentary — has to be judged on its own merits. •Judged as documentaries, the three films "Child", "Mother" and "Community" would rate an indifferent B class. The photography (by an Indian, P. V. Pathy) is first rate, both locations and character faces having been photographed with understanding and sympathy, without the help of overfiltered bleached clouds and prettified landscapes. The various ills to which an Indian village is heir to — disease, ignorance, superstition— are catalogued with grim and unlovely details and the message of "hygienic living" is hammered in relentlessly both through pictorial effects and commentary. Viewed superficially one might say that though young Zils has not produced a documentary in the tradition of Flaherty and Paul Rotha he has at least rendered some useful service to us, Indians, by making these films. But has he? Documentaries were once described as "films of truth". Has Zils told the truth, the whole truth, in these films? According to Zils and his films, the Indian villager is unhappy and miserable not as a result of hundred and fifty years of imperialist oppression and exploitation, not because of the vicious zamindari system, not because of the money-lenders, but because of ignorance and superstition. According to Zils. the ancient systems of Indian medicine are completely worthless. The improvised devices that the peasants i for lack of medical facilities) are forced to use, and some of which are quite effective,