University of Arizona South Asian Film Discussion

3 South Asian films, analyze each and respond with 2 paragraphs 300-500 words per film

Film 1: Samskara

Write 2 paragraphs 300-500 words on the following question:

Beyond complexities of plot and structure, Samskara is a novel of great sensuality–descriptions of space, vegetation, colors, smells conjure up a very rich and textured world. How does the film translate this sensate world? How does it depict the mind/body split and Praneshacharya’s inner turmoil? Comment on the ending of the film and any other changes that you think are particularly significant.

Film 2: Sonar Kella

Write 2 paragraphs 300-500 words on the following question:

“The Feluda stories, while mimicking Holmesian detective fiction in their skeletal framework, completely indigenise the
genre in all its narrative details. And while this nativisation of details with respect to setting and characters merely undermines the static colonial stereotypes of the colonies, the specifically Indian transformation of more fundamental thematic concerns, such as what constitutes knowledge and crime, results in a much more direct challenge to the coloniser.” (Mathur, 98)

Do you agree with Mathur’s reading of Feluda as an instance of postcolonial “writing back” to the Holmesian canon? Since Satyajit Ray was a master of adaptation, how does he translate his own story for the screen? How does SONAR KELLA become cinematic, at variance with what Ray understood to be the dialogue-based, uncinematic, “static-ness” of detective fiction?

Film 3: Dev D

Write 2 paragraphs 300-500 words on the following question:

“…what makes Dev D’s intertextuality notable is that while adapting the Devdas archetype, Kashyap reworks its plot to enter into a dialogue with previous adaptations, both by alluding to them and by subverting them. The contemporary style of the film, along with its heavily layered soundscape, speaks to the self-reflexivity and complexities of the global self.” (Mukherjee, “Remembering Devdas,” 79)
Comment on how Dev D not only transforms but subverts plot, character and ideology from the novella, as well as its many adaptations. How does it embark on a postmodern dialogue with this classic modernist text? Creekmur suggests that, “Devdas dramatizes the inability of tradition and modernity to achieve balance: the home and the world—to evoke the paradigmatic title of Tagore’s famous novel, adapted to film by Satyajit Ray—are in a sense this story’s ultimate tragic couple,” (180). Do you agree with this reading of the novella? How does Dev D attempt to reconcile the tradition-modernity dyad? In doing so, does it manage to avert tragedy?

Dev D is on netflix, it is not available on youtube , same goes for Sonar kella but you really dont even need to watch the movies, you can find film analyses online