On "Laal Madhesh" and the new Regional Cinema of Nepal.

- Kshitiz Adhiraj

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A kama-sutra Hindi cine-version dance, cheesy humor, flashy explosives and a macho male protagonist; Laal Madhesh has it all. Some excite while most just fail.

A new version in the regional cinema made in Nepal, this one has been produced locally in Biratnagar but has been made in Hindi language. A film about Nepal and its people living in the Madhesh plains, despite sincere obedience with Bhojpuri and Hindi pop culture based on Indian cinema, the film is calling for issues that very well point at national disintegration.

I had the opportunity of meeting director Saleem Ansari as I watched Laal Madhesh at the only theater where it screened in Nepal. As a low-budget filmmaker he was busy fixing the projector, catching up on the audience and opening doors. The platform was a long shut theater some 10 k.m. east of Biratnagar especially open for this screening, and it was well over its second week here.

"Laal Madhesh is an entertaining, family masala film it just so very happens that the issue it picks on is of Madhesh", was Ansari's reply to a quick judgement on its Madhesi content. For what Nepal is going through with all those twenty more madhesi armed outfits, Ansari's statements suddenly opens doors for countless discussions.

The way I see it, Laal Madhesh is a mis-match masala film adapted from the Bollywood style of cinema which makes a serious but failing attempt to ensure audience satisfaction. The audiences here are mostly madhesi youths and villagers of the eastern Terai belt. 

Birju, also played by Ansari is an aspirant actor turned Madhesi revolutionary after a close friend's death to gradually pick weapons fighting for the rights of the Madhesi people. Along the way, there's space weaved in for a love triangle between Birju, his long time girlfriend/ journalist and the daughter of his commander. On the other side, we have Nepal police working as the main antagonist, killing and slaughtering madhesi people as it wishes.

Apart from the romance aspect which respects the glamorous fantasy of love prescribed by Hindi cinema. The film also makes a justifiable attempt in accepting male centric principles as the key market for the film. Women find little or no space at all in the entire plot except performing to satisfy requirements of both the male characters and the similar audiences. I would still question myself as to why a film with such heavy social content would delve into a specific commercial representation of heterosexual romance. I would know less until the film gradually took shape.

One of the biggest loopholes here is that the film takes place in no specific location, but Madhesh in general. A local observer would gradually find out that the locations take place in Biratnagar but for a film its unjust, and it develops into maintaining the same dilemma in establishing the social pretexts of both the characters and the incidents taking place. Here once again we would have a given human object placed at one given space fighting, kissing or shouting; with the audience left clueless on the pretexts to its development. But Ansari must have taken it other-wise. With the huge relevance of the month long madhesh strike just two years back and the numerous cases of human grievances due to violence from Madhesi armed forces Madhesh as a social content is not a new issue. Almost everyone here knows what has been going on in the Madhesh for centuries and what the shouts in Madhesh sound and smell like. Based on which, we have our own judgements. Madhesh as an issue for the creation of a new federal Nepal is ripe and very very important.

But what happens now if an audience with all these mind set enters a theater and is exposed to a film based on the Madhesi pretext shouting loudly of this essence, opens up into highly fictionalized representation of the core act involved with our understanding of the same. Revolution both in terms of standing on the street protesting and carrying guns in revolt have their own space and are both justified. We as audiences have our own beliefs towards these acts, and films of fiction which penetrates our fields of beliefs also opens dimensions for new beliefs based on what have just been encountered. Here cinema acts as a live medium not just of social relevance and entertainment alone but of propaganda and of intellectual infiltration.

With the fantasy contents in the film derived from forms of the Hindi- cinema the relevance of such infiltration is larger. We as audiences of the region are trained to believe much of what come in Hindi films and the act continues here. Lal Madhesh is the name of an armed outfit joined by the protagonist in the film. When Birju goes with his friends to join the group he meets the leader ( seen only once) who hands over guns to the newbie's. The leader is dressed as if to look like some south Indian dacoit and the group members feel like a goon of dacoits from Solay. To no surprise the leader has a daughter who wears a black blouse and green short skirts almost throughout the film. There's a mentally unstable character in the goon who also acts as the main assassin. The more I mention, the more these examples open descriptions of forms that Hindi cinema has used for decades. By allowing the general viewer to delve into similar contents as a fantasy film, Laal Madhesh enforces the audience to buy armed madhesi outfits as being involved in fictious activities allowing much sincere ideologies to be deflated by popular themes of class struggle alone. 

To the contrary of which, what they do in reality is no fiction. Madhesi armed outfits are out large and real. They have issues, they address sometimes leading to deaths. And not all groups are there for the loot money alone. Calling them such would also mean harrashments to the serious issue of madhesh. This I fear is something Laal Madhesh does loudly. Although there is no specific act in the film showing the act of loot, the relevance that the film has been designed for male audiences has already been pointed at.

Cinema of fantasy in its evolution has come very close time and again repeatedly in making the audience feel everything to be real. And if films are to impose reality as this into fantasy contents that appease the audience, the relevance could very easily be intellectual infiltration.

On its first screening held in Duhabi, near Biratnagar Laal Madhesh was shutdown by the administration before the film completed. Stories are such that the film led to communal violence between pahade (hill origin people) and the madhesi's which the director denies and calls it an administration problem. Censored by the Nepali board, as the director explains mostly on certain "love scenes" the film still seems flaunting happily with ample weapon and blood exhibition and essences that could very easily lead to communal disharmony. This could quite be the fact that the film is being shown only in one theater far away from any pahade population. However there could be results.

Films are assets of creative expression and it’s a free medium. I personally would not allow my films ever to be censored, but I do believe that as a filmmaker one has to be sincere with his own existence first before s/he delves into the characters. Laal Madhesh can also be called a loop of madhesi revolutionary vs pahade police scuffle linked with masala of sex and politics. Everytime the madhesi is seen abused, the shots are very long. Ansari explained that these were merely because the film was about madhesh and that blood could not be rejected. But I would also not go to the extent of saying that the director has plotted these acts to create communal disharmony but it has had an impact. Film is not just the director and his product, but also an appreciation of the product created of intellect from the director. The appreciation always has its own dimentions and doesn’t always follow.

I am not sure if the film has had political inclinations but I do believe the content calls for certain communal disharmony; mainly because we have become disrespectful of each other.

Despite numerous reservations in calling Laal Madhesh a proper film, production wise speaking I would respect this as a fresh attempt in the making of new films in Nepal. The film has been completed at an amount of less that 5 Lakh NRs. Shot entirely by local Biratnagar based crews and edited in a studio that does wedding video. The film re-established the concept of filmmaking even here in Nepal. I am in deep appreciation of the sound works, although some tunes could easily be picked and thrown for plagiarism, the feel it possesses for the countless Nepali audiences is that of a proper film.

Having written this, it brings to my attention the potentiality technical access has brought to cinema being propagandist or intellectually infiltrating. And with the various regional cinema of culture that have been spurring across the country I simply hope these anti-social values take it easy when it comes to finding a way into these new film cultures that could very well become the new stream we could look upto.

For which I assume filmmakers like Saleem Ansari, will take it into sincere attention when serious social issues are to become the main contents of our films. Content obedience from the filmmaker in this line and government supports that don’t just confine to censors can do magic in redefining what cinema of Nepal has been till now. The move is to be made.