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Shwaas evokes scepticism
Shwaas may not go very far when the nominations for the Oscars are announced later this month, writes Saibal Chatterjee.
Sandeep Sawant's low-budget Marathi film Shwaas, India's official entry in the foreign language film category of the Oscar awards, is one of the handful of Indian films to be accorded a repeat screening at the ongoing 35th International Film Festival of India, the others being Anjan Dutt's Bow Barracks Forever and Anup Kurien's Manasarovar, both made in the English language. Needless to say, this has been done in response to public demand. But strangely, judging by the reactions of international cinema experts, Shwaas may not go very far when the nominations for the Oscars are announced later this month.
An Israeli filmmaker, Avi Nesher, who has a film (Turn Left at the End of the World) in the Asian Competition section here, dropped the idea of watching Shwaas when he read the film's synopsis. "It sounds too depressing. A film about a little boy suffering from eye cancer would be a tad difficult for me to take," he confides, probably presaging the response of many a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
If Nesher's point of view could be dismissed as that of a man who hasn't seen the film at all, several foreign delegates who have actually sat through Shwaas feel that it might not quite pass muster at the business end of the 2004 Oscar race. Says a Bangkok-based film festival organizer who included Sandeep Sawant's film in his programme earlier this year: "I did show Shwaas though I did not much care for it personally. I was merely responding to the buzz that it had generated back in India. Shwaas is far too melodramatic for my own liking."
Much in the same vein, an American curator of Indian films says: "I do appreciate that Shwaas is a simple film but what might work against it when it goes before the Academy members is its lack of sophistication. It tends to be rather naïve in its treatment of the theme." A French programmer of Indian films goes to the extent of likening Shwaas to "a television programme".
Shwaas, of course, has its votaries and it represents a far better choice than many of the films that the Film Federation of India has sent for the Oscars in recent years. However, the general response from foreign delegates would suggest that it might have lost the race even before it has really begun.
Some critics attending IFFI 2004 have found Shwaas wanting in comparison with Yesterday, Darrell James Roodt's South African film about an HIV-positive Black woman that will represent the country of its origin at the Oscars. One commonality that Yesterday has with Shwaas is that it revolves around a character grappling with a life-threatening disease, but in cinematic and storytelling terms it is streets ahead.
Roodt, South Africa's best-known director, eschews melodrama and opts for restrained but pure emotions to convey the anguish of a woman who must fight prejudice at several levels. It is a tribute to one woman's will power and unflappable spirit.
Yesterday is only one film. The Oscars field is likely to throw up many such formidable entries. Will a small, unpretentious Shwaas really be enough to blow away the competition?
