Director’s Vision

Indo Realism

Indian Reference To
The Realistic Movie Making Technique

The history of cinema has been constructed on a wide spectrum of film genres which have a common point of reference. The point of reference is generally the distinction in the styles of making films under the fiction and the documentary categories. However, film genres do not have strict limitations in the filmmaking scope as far as the theme, mood, format or the narrative is concerned. Common film genres like comedy, melodrama, war, art film, western, etc. define the moviemakers’ style of cinema for further discussion by critics or the press. The art film circuit being estimated in the blur lines as compared to other genres is because of the wide scope it indulges in. An accumulation of different branches springing up with each work of art define the genre in hundred different sub divisions. And to add to the list is the independent films category having an independent or individualistic approach to the story or the theme being attempted without confiding in the genre. The critical controversy however lies in the Realism genre, which is contested on most instances on the criterion it falls under. The scope is not confined to a set of rigid formal criterion nor a specific subject matter as compared to the indecisive reference of a genre or movement. As declared by Werner Herzog, “the so called CinémaVéritéiśrité?" Probably not, as realism has been an extremely useful concept for asking questions about the nature of cinematographic images, the relation of film to reality, the credibility of images, and the role cinema plays in the organization and understanding of the world. Lastly, he has gone ahead to describe realism as productive illusion as against the question of its legitimate existence. The realistic technique of movie making captures the essence and dynamics of the believability factor of the characters and events portrayed in the film. On the technical front the camera work of mechanical reproduction of reality is the major challenge in this genre. The term first coined around 1830s to define the painting and literature in those days, gave way to the parallel realm of art, gaining popularity for material reality in the dawn of the nineteenth century. Romanticism drew larger than life images for the viewer while on the contrary; realism drew from the reality of the aspects. Realism took form in India under the title of Parallel Cinema reflecting the Indian New Wave in the 1960s, preceded by French New Wave and Japanese New Wave inspired by Italian Neorealism. Initially the bait was passed on by the Bengali Cinema in the likes of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Tapan Sinha to mention a few to the pan Indian film industry. Generally, reflecting the political and socio-economic backdrop of the country in those times with serious content format, realism, naturalism and breaking the typical taboo of the mainstream commercial routine of song and dance sequences, was the key agenda.

Indo Realism:

The latest entrant to the genre list is the Indo realism theory of film making covering the scope of realistic movie making in the Indian context. The term is coined by Film Director Zanane Rajsingh of the film Beyond Blue - an Unnerving Tale of a Demented Mind is in relevance to the Independent movie genre attempted in this film. An ardent follower and believer in the Stanley Kubrick style of film making, has been affected by sheer real life inferences that have been projected in his movies with a parallel theory of its own. The movie pays a tribute to his inspiration in ways that challenge the mechanics of movie making and the meaning deep rooted in instances that create definitive layers. The theory outlining the gist of this film is in the lines of human tendencies and the workings of the mind. A subject as diverse as this one, the portrayal of the characters and the mood of the story is set on the thin line differentiating realism and imagination. The main aim of the director was to go ahead and sketch the crux of the character in a non-fictional manner to the extent of defying the imaginative tendencies. Cinema is an experience and creating one that is intricate in detail and true to form and in the absence of pretence is the fervour of Indo realism as a genre.