Cloud-capped star, auteur of Partition

Ritwik Ghatak’s films and writings humanised the art of cinema on an epic scale. The pioneering filmmaker, whose 100th birthday falls on Tuesday, was an original voice who captured the tragedy and trauma of exile

- Amrit Gangar

Charaiveti! Charaiveti! With these enchanting words (which means keep moving) from the Aitareya Brahmana, Ritwik Ghatak’s film Subarnarekha (Golden Thread) begins asa scroll moves upwards showing the credit titles on screen. While our eyes move, our auditory senses get immersed in some unpredictable temporality.

The creator of the film has established his signature right at the outset. Obviously, it has broken a convention. Through his filmmaking practice and writings, Ghatak (November 4, 1925-February 6, 1976) has made the younger generation of filmmakers fearless in taking artistic risks. That is his great legacy to not only Indian but world cinema. In this year of his birth centenary, though technology has made many inroads into the creative processes, Ghatak shows us an alternative path which is enduring. His voice needs to be heard in our globalised world getting increasingly divided.

The Partition of Bengal had emotionally pained him so much that he articulated that pain with unique poetic pathos in his oeuvre of only eight completed feature films. Today, each of these films — Nagarik (1952), Ajantrik (1957), Bari Theke Paliye (1959), Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960), Komal Gandhar (1961), Subarnarekha (1962), Titas Ekti Nadir Naam (1973) and Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (1974) —is being seen and studied in universities and film schools across the world. But in his lifetime, Ghatak was never invited by any foreign film festival or an institute to present his work and talk about cinema. Today, Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komal Gandhar, and Subarnarekha are shown and studied as the Partition trilogy. In these films, Ghatak aesthetically amalgamates mythology and history that deeply humanises cinema on an epic level.