shahani at prayoga

while watching ‘the bamboo flute’, i tried to go beyond the irritating italicized hindu mythologizing; or the national geographic style orientalism but only succeeded when the music was beautiful or the dancing- which luckily there was enough of- almost. sonal was annoyed by the essentializations that ran rampant throughout the film- whether they were about ‘nature’, ‘art’, ‘woman’. like they exist as pure somewhere in ‘our ancient culture’ or in the ‘simple life of tribals’. the manufacture of this kind of identity annoys me a lot in architecture and should also in film. but maybe i am more forgiving when i don’t understand anything…

the other films were ‘the glass pane’- a strangely beautiful journey into the city from a funeral in a small town; a terrible digital film on akbar padamsee and a short sweet exercise that he conducted with students at the srftii- whch looked nice but was in bengali- and so i still did not understand anything…