Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Notes from the Crematorium

Original name: Mayanakurippugal
Duration: 25 minutes
Year of Completion: 2005
Language: Tamil with English subtitles
Format: Mini DV
Form: Documentary


Synopsis: Madurai city has a central crematorium, where dalits (the untouchables or the harijans or people from the scheduled caste) are involved in a traditional occupation that includes carrying dead bodies, burying or burning them and finally accept whatever paid by the relatives of the deceased ones.

The film is a journey into the crematorium to capture the various rituals carried out by the dalits to their fellow citizens who otherwise would not have touched them.

Ironically death comes alive to bring people together. An old Tamil movie song is used in the film to provoke certain existential questions about life and death. But it is mandatory to have knowledge and skill to become a successful undertaker.

Statement on the film by the director: My first visit to the Madurai central crematorium was only when one of friends hanged himself to death in September 2004. His body was left alone by his friends and relatives on the pyre after a point to become an exclusive property of the undertakers. The amount of care and indifference - in a peculiar and particular mixture - the undertakers showed towards each dead body left an existential question within me, which provoked this film.

The undertakers’ skill and knowledge on the cremation, their experience of having faced death too often, need to be mentioned.

This film is part of my search towards a narrative style in documentary making, which could be more emotional and less cerebral and which could probably give the audience more space for contemplation.

I am from Tamilnadu, where our popular cinema is full of songs and I am very much fascinated by the way they are used to provoke and sustain drama and emotion in our films. No wonder I used the song twice to raise two different queries at two different sequences.

Camera, sound, script, editing and direction : Amudhan R.P.

Festivals:
River to River, Florence Indian Film Festival 2006 -Italy,
Gottingen Documentary Film Festival 2006 – Germany,
Doc-Aviv 2006 – Israel,
Signs 2006 – Trivandrum
3 Screens 2006 – ISF, New Delhi
Peace Film Festival 2006 - Mumbai
Film South Asia 2007, Kathmandu