Meherjan

I have had the opportunity to be at the premier, so do have some observation on the film. I must say that first of all that I had different expectations, hearing before going to theater that the film was created based on oral history project of 1971 rape in Bangladesh. As such I was searching for some already known stories through the oral history project conducted very successfully by ASK. But to my surprise, the film treaded a different story line where emphasis is given on a declining feudal family in the time of 1971 war. Well, this can happen in a film like this which is of course not based on true story. However, there is no doubt that the film tried to provide a post-nationalist perspective on 1971, by valorizing the everyday politics of the people of a village (albeit emphasis was more on the very rich feudal family and the picturesque village and politics came only in the background) and also giving an emphasis on looking at the liberation history through the eyes of the women but what a story! While I do not see any inherent problem in having a love story in the time of war, I do strongly feel that the story needs to be properly contextualized. Otherwise, there will always be a problem of accepting this story by the audience (of course we still don’t know yet how the audience will receive the story). The film was trying to prove a point in theory, and perhaps was a deconstructive move in that vein, but I thought we go to cinema for some thing more. A good cinema can’t be an exact copy of theory!