A NIGHT OF PROPHECY
Marathi, Telugu, Hindi, English and Kashmiri, with subtitles, 77 mins, 2002
Directed by Amar Kanwar Produced by A K Films, Co-producers: The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago and Documentation
Produced by Public Service Broadcasting Trust

Amar Kanwar’s film takes the viewer from Kashmir to Andhra Pradesh, recording songs of oppression, pain, exclusion and marginalisation

Screened as part of Vikalp: Films for Freedom, organised by OPEN SPACE in Pune, July 31 - August 29, 2004

Amar Kanwar’s customary sensitivity guides the viewer along a difficult journey across the subcontinent, pausing to listen to songs of oppression and pain, of dreams denied, of crushed hopes and broken promises. Far from being merely “songs of protest,” the songs in the film are testimony to an exclusion and marginalisation systematically perpetrated by a nation and a society built on inequality and injustice.

Kanwar has mastered the art of gentle persuasion in his films, of making powerful political statements without the sound and fury that typically accompanies critiques of this depth and magnitude. There is no commentary berating the government for its failures and society for its willful and arrogant maintenance of inequality. But lyrical as this film is, the viewer is never allowed to forget that A Night of Prophecy is not about poets and poetry but about the subjects of these poems: the people that speak the words and what they speak of.

The film opens in the rock-scapes of a parched Andhra Pradesh where a singer sends his song into the open sky. It moves to the belly of the beast, under the Dadar bridge in Bombay , where a poet slams his anger against the dark and dripping stones. Thence, back to Andhra where the poet-revolutionary Gadar’s words swirl and dance as they call for change. The next segment takes us to Nagaland’s hills of green and gold where choirs sing of freedom and gravestones stand as silent witnesses to generations of dead. And finally, we are in Kashmir , listening to poets as they speak to the world about spilled blood and the loss of innocence.

With the film, we stop at a few of the many troubled places within the nation that seethe and writhe below the constructed surface of apparent prosperity, peace and progress. Sometimes we hear anger, at other times we hear sorrow, betrayal and despair, but never do these songs join the chorus of congratulation about a vibrant democracy and the positive changes since Independence . Rather, they are dissonant with national panegyrics and our misfortune lies in that these songs, even as they harmonise with each other, rarely move beyond their own regions.

But it is we that are diminished by not being able to hear this alternative symphony: we remain unaware of how many of our brothers and sisters continue to suffer as we gain ground in WTO negotiations, host the World Social Forum and elect a new government at the centre. The oppressions we hear about in these songs are endemic, built into a system that gives so few of us so much and so many of us so little, that allows a tiny minority to be the beneficiaries of change and progress and keeps a large segment of the population away from the newly laden banquet table.

If we do not hear these songs, our battles remain inconclusive, our victories incomplete, our enemies unvanquished. Amar Kanwar gives us a chance to listen and help sing the songs of the forgotten fights in our midst.

For more information, contact amarvg@vsnl.com

InfoChange News and Features, August 2004