Amar Deep Gogoi’s Collage isn’t an easy movie to sit through. It’s an epiphany of the troubled past of Assam, where questions of class, identity, autonomy, and security have not only burned holes through the social and religious fabric of the region, but also through the personal lives of both the participants and the non-participants of the struggles.
Filmmaker Amar Deep Gogoi has a lot to say. He wants to comment on the state of affairs, he wants to critique it, and he also wants to empathize with it. That is why Collage, as a film, is both sequential and segmented in structure. It unfolds in a linear progression, yet is divided into distinct parts that reflect different perspectives from the troubled decades in Assam.
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The title, Collage, is a deliberate choice that represents its form and its philosophy. The fragmented yet inter-related narratives of revolutionaries away from home, a mother losing her son, a lover letting go of her beloved, a sister enduring in silence, and many more are tied together by their shared grief and resistance. Therefore, as a film, Collage makes more sense as a collective whole rather than simply the sum of its parts. However, this approach also introduces a level of complexity.
The film demands that the audience stay actively involved, as the relationships and connections between the characters aren’t immediately made clear. The film has placed two narrators to fill in the blanks, who introduce various situations along spiritual lines, but the film offers little guidance in simplifying it. One example occurs early in the film: a man walking along a village road is suddenly struck on the head by some miscreants. His identity is left ambiguous, with only a subtle clue that supposedly reveals him to be the father of another central character in the film.
Another aspect that may leave some viewers wanting more is the film’s limited contextual grounding. The broader stakes of the revolution, as well as the key parties involved, are not directly explained. While the film rightly resists this exposition, this minimalism also poses a barrier for viewers less familiar with the socio-political history of Assam. There are title cards in between, which provide some information, but their purpose was to move the narrative forward rather than to inform. In fact, there are different uses of narration throughout the film to take the story forward. In one scene, a sister writes to her brother about the suffering of the household in the absence of a male figure. We hear the letter in her voice.
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By resisting a self-imposed ideology, Collage embraces contradictions as it points towards the inherent ambiguities of various situations. A character who has left behind the revolution returns to his village. As he sits beside a local farmer near the fields, he wonders whether genuine farmers could get their names registered with the state. The farmer listens quietly before replying, “Come, let me show you your fields. You must have already forgotten them.” This is a revelatory moment of how far removed the former revolutionary has become from the grassroots realities that he had once claimed to fight for.
The film Collage is also about conflict—a conflict that is not just rooted in class exploitation or in the indifference of the state, but something that also exists within the body, mind, and soul. True psychological horror emerges when a revolutionary, far from home, dreams of being trapped in a deep forest, and beneath him lie the blood-covered faces of his mother and sister. In another scene, love, and possibly separation, is depicted with a strong devotional connection in the background, almost signaling the piousness of the relationship.
Collage also benefits from its cinematography by Nahid Ahmed, which is characterized by slow push-ins and pull-outs that visually correlate to the film’s emotional rhythm. Yes, Collage is a slow film, but it’s never a dull film. It is raw and gritty, and the subject matter is handled with sincerity and seriousness.
As Collage explores the riddles of communism and the Naxalite movement in Assam and, in other places, the demand for autonomy and a classless society, it simultaneously tries to make a point about the ideological contradictions and the emotional impact, revealing the layered realities of such radical times. Produced by Sumitra Hazarika, Collage was released in fourteen cinema halls in Assam, where it ran for a week. It features actors Dipjyoti Kakati, Mahendra Das, Kula Kuldip, Rajib Kalita, Apurba Barman, Bidya Bharati, Kabyashree Hazarika, Meghali Kalita, and Tulika Rajkhowa, among others.