Documentary films as a genre and form can be exceptionally liberating for anyone looking with intent and interest to explore life, society, culture and nature through audio-visual means. The form also makes for hybrid genres like docudrama and docufiction which can be said to have the potential to raise the level of engagement between the filmed object and audience/observer.
Researchers and filmmakers, respectively, with an interest in studying socio-cultural processes and rituals have used film to examine reality and to make art out of documentary practices. In the early phase of its development, predominantly Western filmmakers built a body of audio-visual data on non-Western cultures and societies by producing ethnographic films which has come to constitute a major stream of documentary film practice and art.
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Mau: The Spirit Dreams of Cheraw which has been recently selected for the non-feature category (in the flagship component ‘Indian Panorama’) in the International Film Festival of India,2023 is an interesting attempt at producing a short documentary on the lines of ethnographic cinema with a dreamlike visual experience punctuated with virtuoso creative dance performances. The film documents a forgotten folk or cultural memory in Mizo society concerning the archetypal mother figure who died during her childbirth and the associated bamboo dance ritual performed to pacify the departed soul which is believed to pass through a painful journey to the abode of the spirits.
However, over time, the original association and implication of this traditional cultural dance has been forgotten and diluted. What the film Mau (meaning bamboo) does is at least two things: first, it is a visual documentation and representation of the basic story of the pain of the archetypal mother who died during her childbirth, and second, a narrative enactment of ideas via creative dance and performance(not Cheraw dance). However, the film gains a surreal visual momentum because the line between these two aspects is blurred which creates a hypnotic dreamlike experience. The memory of the mother figure and the ghostly presence of her spirit in the frames is part of the performative facet as well as of the visual design of the film.
What we get, as a result, is an experimental documentary with a creative flair characteristic of live dance performance juxtaposed with conventional devices like a voice-over narration. In coalescing dream imagery (which is usually the stuff of fiction film) in the documentary form with contemporary dance performance, Mau: The Spirit Dreams of Cheraw subtly shift the possibilities for documentaries in our part of the world. The scenes of the mother spirit around and with bamboos are staged in a fictional manner and fused with footage of regular bamboo-related activities and Cheraw dance. But the point of view or the gaze of the film is almost always from the perspective of the mother spirit which helps in driving home the message of the film without being didactic.
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In cultural discourse dreams are often considered to be revelations of the real: of the gaps in perception, memory and understanding. From occult belief systems to modern psychology, dreams and visions have been a key means for understanding human subjectivity. In filming the issues and subject of the film in the language of dreams, director Shilpika Bordoloi makes the film almost like a message from the archetypal mother spirit goading all of us to take a moment and renew our connections with nature. The film may be about bamboo and bamboo dance in Mizo culture and life but extends beyond it to communicate an urgent message of touching base with nature and intergenerational knowledge and memory for a better future.
At a time when ‘OTT platforms and fresh audiences are creating wide open spaces’ for documentaries ‘as works of art rather than as tools of dissent’ (Frontline Magazine, 28 July, 2023), Mau seems to belong to the current moment in the trajectory of the Indian documentary post the success of The Elephant Whisperers and All That Breathes at the Oscars this year.
Shilpika Bordoloi, the director of Mau comes, comes from a background and experience in contemporary dance and body movement-based performance practices. Her short documentary Mau is actually a part of an evolving international repository of varied dance practices connected to the environment and nature and is produced by Company Christoph Winkler (Germany).
Much of the energy of the film comes from a dance-like rhythm in its frames, sound, music and montage. Made largely by a team of women professionals, cinematographer Sumedha Bhattacharya invests the frames with the required visual tone, and Shilpika Bordoloi performing as the mother spirit carries the film with dynamism. In many ways, avant-garde cinema was the result of the collaboration and intervention from artists working in fields other than film, and Mau: the spirit dreams of Cheraw is part of this legacy.