''Uttara'' ( en, The Wrestlers, bn, উত্তরা) is a 2000
Bengali language
Bengali ( ), generally known by its endonym Bangla (, ), is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bengal region of South Asia. It is the official, national, and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and the second most widely spoken o ...
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...
thriller directed by Bengali poet
Buddhadev Dasgupta
Buddhadeb Dasgupta (11 February 1944 – 10 June 2021) was an Indian filmmaker and poet best known for his Bengali-language films like ''Bagh Bahadur'', '' Tahader Katha'', ''Charachar'' and ''Uttara''. Five of his films have won the National ...
. Based on a short story by
Samaresh Bose, it stars
Jaya Seal as Uttara,
Tapas Paul
Tapas Paul (29 September 1958 – 18 February 2020) was an Indian actor and politician. One of the most celebrated actors of Bengali cinema, Paul is best known for his on-screen romantic collaboration with Mahua Roy Choudhury and Debashree Ro ...
,
Shankar Chakraborty
Shankar Chakraborty is an Indian film and television actor who has done several tele serials and has appeared in pivotal roles in numerous Bengali films.
Personal life
Shankar Chakraborty was born to a Bengali Hindu family. He married actress S ...
,
Raisul Islam Asad
Asaduzzaman Mohammad Raisul Islam (known as Raisul Islam Asad; born 15 July 1953) is a Bangladeshi freedom fighter and an actor in radio, theatre, television and film. He won Bangladesh National Film Award for Best Actor four times for his roles i ...
as a
Christian missionary
A Christian mission is an organized effort for the propagation of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries, to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as ...
.
The film contrasts
violence
Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...
, human vices and lawlessness in a seemingly peaceful setting, in a quiet village in
Purulia
Purulia is a city and a municipality in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarters of the Purulia district. It is located on the north of the Kangsabati River.
Geography
Location
Purulia is located at . It has an average ele ...
district in
Bengal
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
.
''Uttara'' premiered at the
Venice Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival h ...
on 30 August 2000 and was the winner of the festivals' Special Director award. It was screened at the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...
in September 2000 and on 22 May it was shown in the US at the
Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival
The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF) – formerly known as VC FilmFest – is an annual film festival presented by Visual Communications (VC). It was established in 1983 by Linda Mabalot as a vehicle to promote Asian Pacific Ameri ...
The film was released in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
on 13 June 2001 and won the Audience Award at the Nantes festival. It opened the
Pusan Film Festival
The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF, previously Pusan International Film Festival, PIFF), held annually in Haeundae-gu, Busan (''also'' Pusan), South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia. The first festiv ...
in
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...
.Buddhadeb Dasgupta won the ''
National film awards for best direction'' for this movie.
Due to its
homoerotic
Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homose ...
undertones, ''Uttara'' was shown at a number of gay and lesbian film festivals including the
London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival, formerly known as the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (LLGFF), is the biggest LGBTIQ+ film festival in Europe. It takes place every spring in London, England. It began in 1986, as a season of gay and ...
.
Plot
Overview of the film
The way the movie depicts the development of the plot conveys this violation of a peaceful world. The series of disjunctive shots of the threads of the story that follow the opening utopian shot disrupt any notions of linearity, making the audience feel the conflict of the forces that destroys the village. One of these scenes shows an army of dwarfs traversing
mountain
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually highe ...
s,
plain
In geography, a plain is a flat expanse of land that generally does not change much in elevation, and is primarily treeless. Plains occur as lowlands along valleys or at the base of mountains, as coastal plains, and as plateaus or uplands ...
s, and
river
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of w ...
s, suggesting the search for an alternative world. As the dwarf who tries to help Uttara explains, these people have grown weary of the world of 'tall people', which full of cruelty and despair, and seek an alternate world. This is a metaphor for the wider world plagued by inequality and corruption. The troupe of masked folk dancers, who meander through the village, function in a mythic framework, representing the continuity of culture and tradition, and act as a stabilizing force in the various conflicts that mar the idyllic world of the village.
The schism between the friends is illustrated in the wrestling, which gradually becomes an overpowering obsession. Instead of expressing bonding, it takes on the colour of a power-game between two equally physically strong and morally weak men. The wrestling irrespective of homoerotic undertones is a deliberate destruction where one aims to destroy the other, as each morally unjust man attempts to win the physical 'possession' of Uttara.
Although an allegorical, cautionary tale on religious fundamentalism, between Christianity and Hinduism, ''Uttara'' is also an incisive examination of the provincialism, anachronism,
moral and social injustice, and inherent contradiction. Contradiction is very important element in the film, for example the
Christian missionary Padre who dispenses of his food wastefully at a rural village ravaged by poverty in exchange for converting desperate (and undernourished) souls, and a band of Hindu zealots aggressively roaming the landscape in their off-road utility vehicle and behaving in a manner completely with disregard to others contrary to the Hindu faith.
Another important aspect of the film is the way in which the dwarfs don
pagan masks and ritualistically perform an ancient parade through the village. The seemingly pantheistic ancient dance is intended to represent an instinctual connection to roots and tradition becoming a metaphor for the sense of duty that has become increasingly sublimated in an environment of self-interest, vanity, gluttony and strong jealousy and competition. It is this contrasted, parallel image of reverence for the cycle of nature that renders
Buddhadeb Dasgupta
Buddhadeb Dasgupta (11 February 1944 – 10 June 2021) was an Indian filmmaker and poet best known for his Bengali-language films like ''Bagh Bahadur'', '' Tahader Katha'', ''Charachar'' and ''Uttara''. Five of his films have won the National ...
's vision of Indian society as a complex and tragic one, illustrating that society is overcome by
hypocrisy. The barbaric behaviour of the city-dwellers is also intended to reflect the deviance of human nature in modern urban society, as it becomes plagued by declining moral values and terrorized by the inhumanity of extremism.
Cinematography and audio
The film is shot strikingly with visual imagination of the rural pastoral landscapes, the solitary huts of the wrestlers and the isolated church, contrasted against the malignant presence of the three urban yobs and their brutality. Filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasgupta employs a unique strategy of shooting where he consistently shot periods of ''Uttara'' just after
dawn
Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc has reached 18° below the observer's hori ...
and before sunset to emphasise the natural lighting on the landscape and to create atmosphere. In addition, this is precisely matched with reverse angle shots and unusually deep focus for framing and blocking. The cumulative result of such a technique adds to the formal unease, in a world where distinct natural beauty and deadly human menace coexist in equal measure. The
cinematography
Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography.
Cinematographers use a lens to foc ...
, with the increasing or diminishing light of day is intended to directly coincide with the volatile changes in the ambience and mood of the film. The intense sunrise in one of the scenes as tension surmounts attempts to exude a feeling of heat, giving reflecting the burning emotions between the two wrestlers who are overcome by lust and jealousy.
The sounds that accompany these images play into this reiteration of theme on a more abstract level, ranging from the eerie silence that accompanies the menacing presence of the three goons, to the death knell that sounds as a rock rolls down while the wrestlers fight to kill each other. The
audio
Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to:
Sound
* Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound
*Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum
* Digital audio, representation of sou ...
occasionally uses a lot of rhythm and beats, for instance during the escapades of the three yobs, but this is sometimes juxtaposed by images and sounds of tranquility, the shots of the
orchard
An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of ...
accompanied by a soothing tune, and the troupe of dancers with their folk culture, that signify hope for the future.
Cast
*
Jaya Seal as Uttara
*
Tapas Paul
Tapas Paul (29 September 1958 – 18 February 2020) was an Indian actor and politician. One of the most celebrated actors of Bengali cinema, Paul is best known for his on-screen romantic collaboration with Mahua Roy Choudhury and Debashree Ro ...
as Nemai
*
Shankar Chakraborty
Shankar Chakraborty is an Indian film and television actor who has done several tele serials and has appeared in pivotal roles in numerous Bengali films.
Personal life
Shankar Chakraborty was born to a Bengali Hindu family. He married actress S ...
as Balaram
*R.I. Asad as Padre
*Tapas Adhikari as Railway Guard
*Saurav Das as Matthew
*Gautam Warshi as Militant
*Masood Akhtar as Militant
*
Subrat Dutta
Subrata Dutta (born 16 November 1975) is an actor who appears in Indian films. He is best known for his role in Bollywood films like ''Talaash'', '' Tango Charlie'', ''Zameen'', ''The Shaukeens'', ''Rakhcharitra'', ''Bhootnath Returns'' and B ...
as Militant
References
External links
*
{{Buddhadeb Dasgupta
Bengali-language Indian films
2000 films
2000 thriller drama films
Films directed by Buddhadeb Dasgupta
Films whose director won the Best Director National Film Award
Films that won the Best Audiography National Film Award
2000s Bengali-language films
2000 drama films
Films based on works by Samaresh Basu
Indian thriller drama films