A double bill of Jorge Sanjinés

El coraje del pueblo / The Night of San Juan (1971)
Jatun Auka (1974)

I hadn’t come across any of Jorge Sanjinés’ films when exploring Bolivian cinema a decade ago. Now in 2024 when doing a similar search, his name showed up quite a bit. This change in internet searches feels driven by changing political landscape in Bolivia more than just chance or timing. Given the topic of Sanjinés films, it makes sense why it is likely easier to discuss his films openly in the last few years than it was in the early 2000s. As per this article by Carla Suárez, Jorge Sanjinés

“particularly focused on documenting indigenous cultures of the Andes: Aymara and Quechua. Sanjinés, an avid critic of colonialism, initiated his cinematic journey under the guiding principle “el cine junto al pueblo” (“cinema with the people”). He took a revolutionary Marxist approach to documentary filmmaking with the mission of giving a voice to the oppressed people of the Andean nation. In 1966, Sanjinés founded the Ukamau Group alongside screenwriter Oscar Soria, cinematographer Antonio Eguino, producer Beatriz Palacios and filmmaker Alfonso Gumucio. The group was named after the title of their first feature-length film Ukamau (meaning “and so it is” in Aymara).” Carla Suárez, 2021

I would like to speculate that the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia likely ushered a new interest in the cinema of Jorge Sanjinés and the Ukamau Group he co-founded. This is because in 2006 Bolivia finally had a president who came from the country’s indigenous population. Given the topics that Sanjinés explored in his films, it likely was easier to discuss them once the country had someone like Morales at the forefront.

In addition, Sanjinés' films especially such as Jatun Auka showcases the struggle of ordinary people against the wealthy land owners who used the strength of the military to suppress the people. This film also shows the role Americans played in training the Bolivian generals. Such cinema is labeled leftist or Marxist cinema and is rarely talked about in North American film critics sections. Somehow talking about guerrillas, resistance isn’t favoured by mainstream critical publications due to how they are funded. This also could be another reason why the cinema of Sanjinés was missing in the English language discourse I tried to search in the early 2000s.

Ukamau Group and Direct Cinema

Carla Suárez likens the cinema movement of Jorge Sanjinés to that of Neorealist cinema and cinéma direct:

"New Latin American Cinema is a film movement, inspired by Italian Neorealismo and Québec documentary genre cinéma direct, that used cinema as an instrument of social awareness and change." Carla Suárez, 2021

One of the aspects of Direct Cinema is the embedded nature of filmmaking where the filmmaker immerses themselves in the environment:

“For the cinéma direct filmmakers, the point of departure is the filmmaking process in which the filmmaker is deeply implicated as a consciousness, individual or collective. It is this process--this consciousness--which gives form and meaning to an amorphous objective reality. Instead of effacing their presence, the filmmakers affirm it.” David Clandfield’s essay From the Picturesque to the Familiar: Films of the French Unit at the NFB (1958-1964).

In this regard, Jorge Sanjinés’ two films seen as part of this spotlight meet the criteria as he clearly immerses himself in the local/village surroundings to depict events. The slight variation for The Night of San Juan is that the film is a documentary-fictional hybrid where villagers/workers re-enact events of the massacre that happened. Such a reenactment lends a reality to proceedings.

Jatun Auka shows how exploitation of people can lead to revolution which in turn leads to a cyclical nature of violence. The finale in the film shows Bolivian military aided by US troops killing revolutionaries and their bearded leader is also a reminder that it was in Bolivia that Che Guevara was killed.

Latin America has had many examples of filmmakers showcasing the human impact of revolution in their films. Patricio Guzmán is one of the best examples with his The Battle of Chile while from an overarching political exploration, Octavio Getino and Fernando E. Solanas’ The Hour of the Furnances (1968) comes to mind. The cinema of Glauber Rocha also explored such topics. Looking beyond Latin America, Indian director Shyam Benegal’s cinema also has a lineage to Direct Cinema in its depiction of plight of villagers.

References / Reading material:

Carla Suárez, Emergence of Indigenous Cinema in Bolivia: The Ethnographic Gaze of Jorge Sanjinés and the Ukamau Group.

Alonso Aguilar: Foundations of Resistance in Bolivian Cinema.

Direct Cinema covered earlier in this blog.

Shyam Benegal covered in this blog.

Glauber Rocha.

Shyam Benegal

"If Ray reflected the Tagorean enlightenment, Benegal is undoubtedly the chronicler of Nehruvian India. He shares its ‘socialistic’ bias and its foundations in secularism, pluralism, democracy, equality of opportunity, human rights, women’s rights and all their concomitants. His all-India identity is pronounced, obvious. Compare him to Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak and the difference leaps out. Ray was a Bengali and an Indian; Ghatak was only a Bengali; Benegal is only an Indian.” -- Chidananda Das Gupta, Seeing is Believing

Chidananda Das Gupta’s words about Shyam Benegal being “an Indian” certainly ring true. Benegal’s films cover India’s diverse landscape by focusing on a range of characters living in different social circles. His camera is not rooted in a specific region but instead effortlessly takes a journey from rural to urban centers to depict stories about villagers, landowners, priests, politicians, policemen, prostitutes, businessmen and industrialists. Benegal’s camera does not judge but instead presents characters in their moments of agony, suffering or happiness without melodrama thereby creating rich portrayals. Chidananda Das Gupta describes the key component to this style:

But the strand central to Benegal’s ideology and his oeuvre is of the documentary. His feature films turn fact into fiction; they grow out of the documentary approach. One should first look at his Fabian semi-documentaries on the theme of the cooperative movement, best illustrated by Manthan (milkmen and women), Susman (handloom weavers) and Antarnaad (fisher-folk).... -- page 268, Seeing is Believing

Looking at Benegal’s career, it is easy to understand why documentaries play such a fundamental role in his films. He started his film career by directing 22 documentaries in a seven year period from 1967 to 1974. Through these docs, Benegal examined social and economic issues affecting Indian society. He continued this keen examination in his early feature film career as Ankur (1974), his feature film debut, along with Nishant (1975) and Manthan (1976) appear as extensions of his documentary style packaged in a fictional framework. Such a style perfectly balances the villagers way of life, their economic hurdles, social oppression with intimate accounts of their lives. Manthan is a shining example of this approach. The film describes steps the villagers need to take in order to set up a milk cooperative, something which will prevent their exploitation at the hand of the local landowner. The cooperative debate is vital to the story but does not dominate the fictional framework of the film and instead forms just one of the tension points shown between the villagers, landowners and the city workers. As a result, one can understand the concerns and suspicions that exist on the opposing sides because the story and Benegal’s style allows a closeness to all the subjects including villagers, landowner and city workers thereby creating a realistic depiction of events.

In Chapter 8, "Film as Visual Anthropology", Chidananda Das Gupta uses the term "realistic New [Indian] Cinema" to perfectly explains Benegal’s style:

Both [Manthan & Susman] show a singular ability to make fiction out of documentary material without compromising the complexity and basic truth of the material. Technical fluency plus an extraordinary penchant for good casting and for the structuring of material make the films dramatic without being too fictional to be true. A remarkable sureness of feeling for people and places in this prolific film-maker enables him to overcome some elements of contrivance in the mix of drama and documentary. With Benegal we reach the frontiers of documentary and fiction and get the feeling that beyond this point, the portrayal would cease to be recognizable.

Near the end of the chapter, Chidananda Das Gupta also briefly mentions "Direct Cinema" when talking about North American cinema movement:

Later, the 'Direct Cinema' movement in the USA remained mainly peripheral both to the film industry and the corridors of power.

Even though he does not link the movement directly to Benegal’s films, the appearance of the words in the same chapter provide some food for thought. If one had to follow the pure definition of "Direct Cinema", then Benegal’s films won’t fit the bill but his films share plenty of sentiments not only with “Direct Cinema” but also with the “Actuality Dramas” of Allan King. In order to explore some similarities between Benegal’s style and Direct Cinema, I refer back to David Clandfield’s insightful essay From the Picturesque to the Familiar: Films of the French Unit at the NFB (1958-1964) which discusses the difference between Candid Eye movement and Direct Cinema.

Technically, of course, both movements had much in common: shooting without script or conscious staging, use of light-weight equipment, a search for the real which deliberately shunned the dramatic of the heroic.
...
For the Candid Eye filmmakers, the subject of the film was its subject matter rooted in objective reality. The starting point was a social or human event-- ephemeral, inscribed in an ephemeral world-- the form and meaning of which require the mediation of the filmic process to become evident. The function of the filmic process, then, was not to mould but to reveal form, and with it meaning.

For the cinéma direct filmmakers, the point of departure is the filmmaking process in which the filmmaker is deeply implicated as a consciousness, individual or collective. It is this process--this consciousness--which gives form and meaning to an amorphous objective reality. Instead of effacing their presence, the filmmakers affirm it.

Instead of rendering the technical process transparent (supposedly), they will emphasize its materiality. Instead of standing apart from their object of study or enquiry, they will implicate themselves within in. Their search for the authentic will involve not only the critical detachment of the empirical investigator in order to strip away “myth” or misconception, but also commitment to the social project under investigation in order to avoid the pitfalls of he aesthetic or the “picturesque.” The overt personal involvement of the subject-filmmaker in the object-reality of the pro-filmic event was, then, the key distinguishing factor of the Québécois cinéma direct from the Anglophone Candid Eye.

1) "shooting without script or conscious staging":

Benegal’s scripted trilogy was filmed with actors so that would not qualify it under a pure direct cinema label.

2) "a search for the real which deliberately shunned the dramatic of the heroic.":

These words apply to Benegal as his trilogy highlights “the real” in opposition to conventional hero vs villain scenarios. Benegal’s films presented both sides of the story and the camera peered into the homes of both landowners and villagers. At times, it is hard to tell who is the hero in these films as most characters are driven by their own fear and insecurities which clash with the needs of others.

3) "overt personal involvement of the subject-filmmaker.":

In Manthan, a milk cooperative paid for the film thereby forming a very valid connection with the filmmaker and the subject of the story. Also, the subject matter of the films show Benegal’s interest in the social plight of the villagers and the story gives a rare voice to the villagers. Although the villagers voice is provided by actors.

Direct Cinema-Actuality Dramas-New Realistic Indian Cinema

Michel Brault’s Direct Cinema, Allan King’s Actuality Dramas and Shyam Benegal’s Realistic Indian Cinema all share traits of portraying pure reality. Not surprizingly, all three directors started their career by making documentaries. Even though Benegal’s realistic cinema are fictional films, they contain elements of documentaries in depicting genuine events. And even when Brault directed Les Orders, a fictional film, it was a retelling of actual events based on interviews. Interestingly, all three directed some of their breakout works within a decade of each other. King’s Warendale and A Married Couple came out in 1967 & 1969 respectively, Brault’s Acadia Acadia?!? was released in 1971, Les Orders in 1974, and Benegal’s debut fictional film Ankur came out in 1974. King and Brault would have crossed paths because they worked in Canada but Benegal was probably not aware of either movements. Just like the 1950’s and 1960’s were a period of rich foreign cinema, it appears that the 1970’s and 1980’s were a period of rich reality based movements such as Direct Cinema, Actuality Dramas and the New Realistic Indian Cinema.

Equal Voice and balanced portrayal

Ankur, Nishant and Manthan are completely realized works because they provide an equal voice to both opposing sides whether it be villagers vs landowners, villagers vs city workers or men vs women. The female characters are essential to all three films and the camera ensures that they are given enough screen time to properly understand their situation. This balanced approach ensures the films are not one-sided. Benegal is also a rare Indian filmmaker who has given women a proper spotlight in his films, not only in terms of acting but also by story focus. Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil are key components of Ankur, Nishant and Manthan and would go on to play relevant parts in other vital Indian films. Later in his career, Benegal directed a women centric trilogy, Mammo (1994), Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001), films which featured focus on three Muslim women. This equal portrayal just affirms his status of a genuine Indian filmmaker.

The past & present, religion & myth

Shyam Benegal not only depicted current state of events in Indian society but also explored Indian’s colonial past. Junoon (1979) takes place in colonial Indian and is set against the backdrop of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Whereas, Kalyug (1981) is a brilliant retelling of the Mahabharta in the closed Indian economy of the 1980’s when strict quotas for production resulted in corruption and labor disputes. The business model depicted in Kalyug was due to "License Raj", a term going back to 1947. In essence, Kalyug brings together one of Indian’s famous epics, post-British Indian legacy and contemporary Indian society in the 1980’s. So it depicts three time periods, or Trikal, which also happens to be the title of Benegal’s 1985 film which explores three time periods in Goa.

The dangers of blindly following a sage’s advice are perfectly highlighted in Kondura which shows that blind faith can sometimes result in someone being manipulated and committing a grave error. In the film, Parashuram (Anant Nag, a regular in Benegal’s films) gets a vision first from the sage Kondura (Amrish Puri) and then from a Goddess, both of whom warn Parashuram about stopping the growing sin in the village. Their instructions are vague and they never point to a specific case of evil in the village. It is left up to Parashuram on how to interpret their words. Parashuram’s few attempts to correct things, such as rebuilding a temple and the discovery of water in an arid land, lead some villagers to regard Parashuram as a sage. His ego is buoyed by his new found followers and combined with his intent in fulling the sage’s words causes Parashuram to fall into a trap set by the local landowner Bhairavmoorthy. The film cleverly includes some elements which question the authenticity of Parashuram’s visions. Kondura is only shown in one scene and is played by Amrish Puri, who provides the voice for Bhairavmoorthy even though the landowner is played by a different actor. Also, the Goddess that visits Parashuram takes the form of his wife Ansuya (Vanisri) which also lays a seed of doubt about whether Parashuram is imagining his visions.

Mandi stands apart from other Shyam Benegal films because of its sharp witty humor. Despite being light hearted than his other films, Mandi tackles plenty of relevant social issues in its portrayal of the women working in a bordello, the clients, landowners, policemen and politicians whose lives hover around the bordello. In fact, the humor manages to highlight the hypocrisy and selfish nature of the characters perfectly. The film is jam packed with movement where characters are constantly entering and exiting a frame thereby creating a theatrical like feel to the work. All the performances are top notch which is not a surprize given that the film contains a stellar cast of Naseeruddin Shah, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Amrish Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Saeed Jaffrey, Om Puri, Neena Gupta, Ratna Pathak, Pankaj Kapur, Satish Kaushik, Harish Patel, Annu Kapoor and Ila Arun. Only Anant Nag is missing otherwise the film would have featured a complete lineup of key actors featured in India’s parallel cinema. Mandi also stars Aditya Bhattacharya, director Basu Bhattacharya’s son and director Bimal Roy’s grandson. Aditya is not well known as an actor even though his few acting titles include Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday and Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi but more importantly Aditya is know for his directorial debut film Raakh. Released in 1989, and starring Aamir Khan, Supriya Pathak, Pankaj Kapur, Raakh is one of the best Indian films to have been made in the last few decades. In fact, along with Parinda, Raakh set the stage for the wave of gritty and dark crime movies that emerged in India near the end of the 1990’s.

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The following seven films were seen as part of this spotlight:

Ankur (1974)
Nishant (1975)
Manthan (1976)
Kondura (1978)
Junoon (1979)
Kalyug (1981)
Mandi (1983)

Only Manthan and Kondura were first time viewings while I revisited the remaining five after a long gap. Kalyug is the only film that I have seen multiple times while growing up and the recent viewing was particularly rewarding. Girish Karnad and Shyam Benegal’s screenplay incredibly adapts key characters and situations of the Mahabharta in a corporate business setting. The background score heightens the tension and sentiments of revolution and violence beautifully. For these reasons, Kalyug is a personal favourite film.

Putty Hill, The Arbor

Innovative Cinema

A character is busy doing something but suddenly the character stops what they are doing and looks towards the camera to answer questions by an unseen interviewer. Once the character has answered the questions, the camera steps back allowing the character to jump back into the fictional story that continues until the next stoppage to address the audience.

Such a unique and innovative approach in Matthew Porterfield’s Putty Hill manages to blur the line between documentary and fiction by incorporating interviews within the framework of scripted cinema.

This same technique of addressing the audience directly can also be found in Clio Barnard’s The Arbor where actors talk directly to the camera before the film continues.

However, there is a difference in the technique between Putty Hill and The Arbor. Porterfield’s film is fiction that uses mostly non-professional actors but The Arbor uses professional actors to lip-sync a true story. This technique is needed in The Arbor because this method is similar to the work of Andrea Dunbar on whose plays the film is based on. Clio Barnard describes this direct address technique in the film's DVD booklet:

Andrea’s fiction was based on what she observed around her. She reminded the audience they were watching a play by her use of direct address when The Girl in The Arbor introduced each scene.

I see the use of actors lip-synching as performing the same function, reminding the audience they are watching the retelling of a true story.

My work is concerned with the relationship between fiction film language and documentary. I often dislocate sound and image by constructing fictional images around verbatim audio. In this sense, my working methods have some similarity to the methods of verbatim theatre.

Verbatim theatre by its very nature (being performed in a theatre by actors) acknowledges that it is constructed. Housing estates and the people who live there are usually represented on film in the tradition of Social Realism, a working method that aims to deny construct, aiming for naturalistic performances, an invisible crew and camera, adopting the aesthetic of Direct Cinema (a documentary movement) as a short hand for authenticity. I wanted to confront expectations about how a particular group of people are represented by subverting the form.

I used the technique in which actors lip-sync to the voices of interviewees to draw attention to the fact that documentary narratives are as constructed as fictional ones. I want the audience to think about the fact that the film has been shaped and edited by the filmmakers.....

This verbatim theatre and direct audience technique results in a rich work that is a fascinating blend of improv theatre, scripted cinema and a documentary. Often, examples of all three methods take place in just one sequence.

For example, an actor describes the context of the scene the audience are about to observe.

The actor then jumps into character in a theatrical set constructed in the middle of the exact same living space the story is based on. So reality feeds into fiction which in turn reflects reality.

This direct address technique also gives the appearance of interactive cinema. In both Putty Hill and The Arbor, the camera pans across the screen before slowly stopping on a character who then addresses the audience. On first glance, this looks to have the same level of control as when a user clicks on an object of interest when scrolling across a user interface. However, this level of control is a bit misleading since it is not a two-way interaction because the audience does not have full control to listen from any character. Instead, the characters that speak up do so as per the film director’s discretion. The directors carefully adjust the audience attention on a particular character via the camera movement (pan combined with a slow focus) thereby arousing curiosity in the mind of viewers. As a result, when a character speaks up, it is not unexpected nor intrusive. In fact, the character’s words are welcome because it allows viewers to learn a bit more about events in the story.

The following example from The Arbor shows how such a one-way interactive moment takes place. This scene shows characters engaged in a heated debate which threatens to get out of hand.

A policeman leads one of the characters away.

The camera tracks the two characters and settles in on a face in the crowd

who then gives the addresses the audience directly.

Both films share a direct address technique although The Arbor has roots in Verbatim theatre while Putty Hill is a fluid blend of documentary with fiction. The two films are innovative works that break free from the conventional cinematic mould and are essential viewing.

The Actuality Dramas of Allan King

The first time I heard a film described as an actuality was when Allan King mentioned it in the Q&A session following a special screening of his film A Married Couple. The word perfectly described A Married Couple because the film was an actual documentation of the ups and downs of a married couple’s relationship. Sadly, a few months after the special Calgary Cinematheque screening Allan King passed away. That made the screening of A Married Couple even more special.

The 2008 screening of A Married Couple meant that the film was once again starting to get some attention almost four decades it was released. Then last year, Criterion released a box-set of Allan King’s films, naturally called The Actuality Dramas of Allan King. Having already seen A Married Couple, the other four films were part of this spotlight.

Warrendale (1968)
A Married Couple (1969)
Come On Children (1972)
Dying at Grace (2003)
Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company (2005)

The subject material of all five films is sensitive and intimate. Warrendale captures day to day life in a rehabilitation home for emotionally disturbed kids, A Married Couple shows the turbulent and tense moments of a marriage, Come on Children brings forth some teenage concerns and attitudes, Dying at Grace shows terminally ill patients in their final moments of life and Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company sheds a light on behaviour and moments associated with human aging.

The only film out of the five that is not shot in its original location is Come on Children. Warrendale is shot exclusively inside the rehabilitation home, A Married in Couple takes place in either the couple’s home or their office and both Dying at Grace and Memory... are shot respectively in the health center and nursing home where the patients lived. On the other hand, Come on Children required the subjects to leave their natural homes to go live in selected location. This is how the idea for the film came about:

King interviewed three or four hundred people between the ages of thirteen and nineteen from the middle-class suburbs of Toronto about their unsatisfactory presents and desired futures. The most common comment he heard was that they wanted to be left alone by hassling cops, teachers, parents, and other authority figures. So King granted their wish, inviting a cross section of them (five boys, five girls) to live on a remote farm for ten weeks, without supervision, to be filmed at all times.

The end result is a cinematic experiment decades ahead of its time. Basically, the film predicts modern day reality shows such as Big Brother by having a camera capture the life of its subjects round the clock. Initially, the constant presence of the camera draws hostile reactions from two teenagers with one of the teens trying to place his hand on the camera and telling the camera man to get lost. But eventually, the teens go about their lives naturally as the camera becomes a part of their lives.

Memories and Death

We have a desperate need as human beings to understand reality, and we go to desperate ends to avoid that reality......

The curious thing is that when you do look at reality and face it, it is no longer fearsome. -- Allan King

Both Dying at Grace and Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company go to great lengths to portray that reality and as such present plenty emotionally touching and tearful moments. It is hard to imagine how Peter Walker shot both films objectively because the material certainly would not have been easy to film, especially that of Dying at Grace where some of the patients pass away in presence of the camera. At times, it feels intrusive to observe intimate family moments when a loved one has passed away but the film was conceived with the blessing of the patients and their families. In that regard, one hopes audience find positives in observing such tender moments.

Interestingly, Allan King’s first and second last feature complete a cinematic circle. In Warrendale, there is a significant moment when the staff talk to the children about the death of a cook. This discussion leads to the film’s main crisis point as some children emotionally break down and become difficult to control. In Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company, the nursing home staff talk about the death of Max to the other residents. Naturally, given their age and health, the reaction of the other residents is muted and different from the children in Warrendale. Yet, the discussion about death is similar in both films even though the people listening to the news are on opposite ends of an age spectrum.

Overall

Personally, A Married Couple is my favourite overall film from the five. Also, it is a film that one can objectively observe without letting any emotional filters get in the way. Any person who has experienced a relative losing their memory as they aged would find Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company a tough viewing while Dying at Grace would be more difficult to view for anyone who has ever lost a loved one. Warrendale is an amazing film from a cinematic technique but some of the methods for the children's rehabilitation are not the easiest to digest. The weakest film in the group ends up being Come on Children. That has a lot to do with the subjects captured on camera. The children had total freedom to do as they pleased but after a few days, they settled into a routine of singing and lying around. Their biggest struggle came when they had to discuss who had to clean the kitchen. No amount of editing could have enriched the material but still the film offers an interesting case study about the behavior and concerns of some teens in the early 1970’s.

Actuality = Direct Cinema - embedded presence

Allan King’s debut feature Warrendale is an incredible piece of cinema that lays out the actuality filming style King would follow in his subsequent films. This style involved shooting primarily in an indoor location, acutely observing humans in tender and sensitive moments without the presence of a director or a narrator. Allan King removed himself from the room while his cinematographer lived and filmed freely without inhibitions. The fact that Allan King was not present in the room during filming is what probably differentiates his actuality style from Direct Cinema which required the filmmaker to be embedded constantly in their shooting environments. The tender and sensitive subject material of Allan King’s films necessitated him to be absent from the room because his presence would have indirectly influenced his subjects or would have broken the intimacy that could be offered by a silent cinematographer whose job was to shoot everything without any filters or editing.

Allan King’s techniques should be treasured and his works deserve a wider appreciation. His topics may not find many takers but the technique used in his actuality films can certainly lead to a more rich and pure form of cinema.

note: The subject material of Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company reminded me of Jean-François Caissy’s Journey’s End, a Canadian film that I saw at last year’s CIFF. Journey’s End also observes its elder subjects without any voice-over narration and offers an unfiltered look at their lives.

The Direct Cinema of Michel Brault

"This is Canada?"

These were the words that came to my mind when I first saw Michel Brault’s Les Ordres a few years ago. The film showed how in 1970 hundreds of citizens in Quebec were arrested without a warrant and held indefinitely without ever getting a charge laid against them. It was eye-opening to see such an incident took place on Canadian soil and Brault’s film was my first introduction to this portion of Canadian history. As it turns out, Les Orders was also Brault’s most accessible film on DVD and part of that reason might be because the film won him a best director award in Cannes 1975. Brault's remaining films remained out of reach until I came across National Film Board’s (NFB) box-set of his earlier films from 1958-1974. The five disc collection contains four features, nine shorts and two bonus documentaries on Brault.

My spotlight of four features and four shorts is based on a subset of films from that box-set:

Les raquetteurs (1958, 15 min)
La lutte (1961, 28 min)
Québec-U.S.A. ou L'invasion pacifique (1962, 27 min)
Pour la suite du monde (1963)
Geneviève (1964, 28 min)
Entre la mer et l’eau douce (1965)
L'Acadie, l'Acadie?!? (1971)
Les Ordres (1974)

The NFB package also contains an excellent collection of essays & articles on Brault’s films in French and English. However, as per the introduction all the essays are presented in their original language without translation, which means there are more French essays than English ones. Still, the few English essays provide an essential look at Brault’s filming methods and even the concept of "cinéma direct" ("Direct Cinema"), a movement that I was completely unaware of.

Candid Eye

The road to Direct Cinema starts off with the Candid Eye productions of the CBC. In the essay How to Make or Not to Make a Canadian movie (La Cinémathèque canadienne, Montreal, 1967) included in the box-set, Wolf Koenig describes how the inspiration and genesis of the Candid Eye movement started. The original idea that Koenig and others proposed to the CBC for their films was:

..Record life as it happens, unscripted and unrehearsed: capture it in sync sound, indoors or out, without asking it to pose or repeat its lines; edit it into moving films that would make the audience laugh and cry (preferably both at the same time); show it on TV to millions and change the world by making people realize that life is real, beautiful and meaningful, etc. Management was understandably puzzled by this proposal. We were told that films cannot be made like this -- that there would be difficulties...

Some of the difficulties that Koenig and other Candid Eye filmmakers encountered are still a challenge for art, independent and foreign filmmakers today.

....We roamed the grounds with haunted looks searching for reality, ready to siphon it into our Bolex whenever it should appear. We got some pretty pictures but it was impossible to cut them into film.

This unconventional kind of documentary film presented new and disconcerting problems. For instance: How does one get an audience to look at a film that doesn’t have a story or even a conventional message? Worse: how does one get script approval from management for a film without a script? Or: how can one get close to the subject with all those clumsy cameras and lights and microphones, without scaring him off? And how, in God’s name, could we be sure of being present when the moment of truth arrives? We couldn’t very well shoot every boring minute of the hero’s life, waiting for his soul to reveal itself (although, at times, we did). There were many such questions...

The breakthrough and inspiration for Koenig came courtesy of a ..book of photographs called The Decisive Moment by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Koenig goes onto explain that the book’s "foreword became our bible. We followed it verbatim."

Sections of the foreword are included by Koenig and those are reproduced below.

The picture-story involves a joint operation of the brain, the eye and the heart. The objective of this joint operation is to depict the content of some event which is in the process of unfolding, and to communicate impressions. Sometimes a single event can be so rich in itself and its facets that it is necessary to move all around it in your search for the solution to the problems it poses -- for the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude towards something that is moving...

We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory...for photographers, what has gone, has gone forever...Our task is to perceive reality, almost simultaneously recording it in the sketchbook which is our camera. We must neither try to manipulate reality while we are shooting, nor must we manipulate the results in a darkroom...

...In whatever picture-story we try to do, we are bound to arrive as intruders. It is essential, therefore, to approach the subject on tip-toe --even if the subject is still-life. A velvet hand, a hawk’s eye- --these we should all have...

The profession depends so much upon the relations the photographer establishes with the people he’s photographing, that a false relationship, a wrong word or attitude, can ruin everything. When the subject is in any way uneasy, the personality goes away where the camera can’t reach it. There are no systems, for each case is individual and demands that we be unobtrusive, though we must be at close range...
There is subject in all that takes place in the world, as in our personal universe. We cannot negate subject. It is everywhere. So we must be lucid toward what is going on in the world, and honest about what we feel.

Subject does not consist of a collection of facts, for facts in themselves offer little interest. Through facts, however, we can reach an understanding of the laws that govern them, and be better able to select the essential ones which communicate reality...

If a photograph is to communicate its subject in all its intensity, the relationship of form must be rigorously established. Photography implies the recognition of a rhythm in the world of real things. What the eye does is to find and focus on the particular subject within the mass of reality. What the camera does is simply to register upon film the decision made by the eye...One does not add composition as though it were an afterthought superimposed on the basic subject material, since it is impossible to separate content from form. Composition must have its own inevitability about it...

I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us which can mold us, but which can also be affected by us. A balance must be established between these two worlds -- the one inside us and the one outside us. As a result of a constant reciprocal process, both these worlds come to form a single one. And it is this world that we must communicate. -- English translation of "Images à la sauvette" (èd, Verve, Paris, 1952).

And so the Candid Eye movement was born.

Direct Cinema

Our films have, above all, been
an impassioned appropriation
of the social environment.
The picturesque (the outsider’s view)
has yielded to the familiar; the myth
has yielded in the face of reality.
-- Gilles Carle, Parti Pris, 7
(April 1964)

David Clandfield’s insightful essay From the Picturesque to the Familiar: Films of the French Unit at the NFB (1958-1964) begins with this quote from Carle, who was a member of the French Unit at the National Film Board. As per Clandfield, Carle made the above comment when the direct cinema movement was coming to an end because "..the tightly knit group of francophone filmmakers at the NFB was dispersing."

David Clandfield describes the emergence of direct cinema, its similarities and differences from the Candid Eye films of the NFB.

Technically, of course, both movements had much in common: shooting without script or conscious staging, use of light-weight equipment, a search for the real which deliberately shunned the dramatic of the heroic.

However, the two movements differed when it came to the involvement of the filmmakers with the project.

For the Candid Eye filmmakers, the subject of the film was its subject matter rooted in objective reality. The starting point was a social or human event-- ephemeral, inscribed in an ephemeral world-- the form and meaning of which require the mediation of the filmic process to become evident. The function of the filmic process, then, was not to mould but to reveal form, and with it meaning.

For the cinéma direct filmmakers, the point of departure is the filmmaking process in which the filmmaker is deeply implicated as a consciousness, individual or collective. It is this process--this consciousness--which gives form and meaning to an amorphous objective reality. Instead of effacing their presence, the filmmakers affirm it.

Instead of rendering the technical process transparent (supposedly), they will emphasize its materiality. Instead of standing apart from their object of study or enquiry, they will implicate themselves within in. Their search for the authentic will involve not only the critical detachment of the empirical investigator in order to strip away “myth” or misconception, but also commitment to the social project under investigation in order to avoid the pitfalls of he aesthetic or the “picturesque.” The overt personal involvement of the subject-filmmaker in the object-reality of the pro-filmic event was, then, the key distinguishing factor of the Québécois cinéma direct from the Anglophone Candid Eye.

.....Instead of standing apart from their object of study or enquiry, they will implicate themselves within in.

These words from David Clandfield’s essay about the Direct Cinema technique made me think of embedded journalism. In the last few years, embedded journalism has come to refer to the reporting style where journalists travel along with the military units they are covering. This also means that the journalists share the same working space as the military officers. It turns out that Direct Cinema used such closeness a long time ago as part of its filming methodology. The personal involvement of Brault is apparent from L’Acadie l’Acadie?!?, a film which shows the Acadian identity struggle that took place in the University of Moncton in New Brunswick. As part of their protests, the university students locked themselves in the university buildings. Brault was also locked indoors with the students and that allowed him to get close to the students and record their true feelings/actions.

In a sense, embedded filming was a key component of Direct Cinema, which means Direct Cinema was a pure form of cinema because the filmmaker inserted himself/herself into the environment of their subject and filmed without any inhibitions or filters. The filmmaker did not direct his/her subjects nor did the filmmaker interfere in the subject’s words or actions. This detachment allowed the filmmaker to portray reality as objectively as possible.

Heavy camera, Mobile movement

One of the original problems of the Candid Eye movement that Wolf Koenig posed was the difficulty of heavy camera equipments:

Or: how can one get close to the subject with all those clumsy cameras and lights and microphones, without scaring him off?

Nowadays with light digital cameras such problems do not exist. However, this was a relevant problem back in the late 1950’s through early 1970’s. Yet, this problem did not prevent Brault from making remarkable films where his camera’s presence is non-existent. His films demonstrate mobile camera movement that captured a wide array of shots, often taken with a single camera and no multiple takes. Such a feat would be difficult today, but it is truly remarkable to think that he and his crew managed this five decades ago. The film that is a shining example of Brault’s techniques is L’Acadie l’Acadie?!? where the camera directly places the viewer within the same university halls as the students thereby making the audience a silent member of the political discussions taking place. Brault does now allow the camera to merely record at a distance but manages to allow the audience to get close with a few select vocal leaders of the student union by varying camera angles when the students are shown during heated debates or in moments of silence. The camera moves in close when it needs to and pulls away appropriately to provide a more complete picture. Such movement and closeness of the camera allows the camera to be an invisible interviewer that is probing the subject to get their true feelings out.

Culture, Rituals & History

Michel Brault’s films are not only about beautiful technique but they document Canadian cultures, traditions and history that would otherwise be lost over time. Les Raquetteurs records the celebration and tradition surrounding a snowshoe competition in Sherbrooke in the late 1950’s while La lutte shows the rituals that were identified with professional wrestling in Montreal Forum and also in back-street wrestling parlours across Montreal. Pour la suite du monde shows a traditional whale-catching practice that was part and parcel of life in Île-aux-Coudres, a small island in the St. Lawrence River. The film is also a reminder of the complex nature of Canadian history. In the film, a short discussion about Jacques Cartier between two town residents shows that Canada’s history changes when it is viewed either via French, English or Native perspective. In his wonderful book A Fair Country John Ralston Saul mentions that a true picture of Canadian history has to take Métis and other First Nation ethnicities into account. Such an inclusion would mean a three pronged view of Canada’s past as opposed to the current situation where Canadian history is only viewed through either English or French eyes. Pour la suite du monde is from a French perspective but it raises the point if the origin of some rituals, such as Beluga whale hunting, would change when Natives would recount their history.

In 1969, New Brunswick became the first and only bilingual province in Canada. However, the journey to get bilingual status was anything but easy. L'Acadie, l'Acadie?!? shows a fraction of this struggle by highlighting the efforts of students in the University of Moncton to get bilingual status so that they could continue to speak in French and thereby preserve their Acadian identity. The film is from the perspective of the University students but a segment shot in city hall illustrates the divide between the English speaking majority and the Francophone minority in Moncton. In the city hall meeting, every time the University of Moncton students tried to speak, their voices were attempted to be drowned out by coughs and disapproval from the English speakers. Interestingly, this divide over language extended to cultural differences as well about Acadian identity. Such debates about cultural and language freedoms have reignited recently in Canada, especially in Quebec, as new waves of immigrants enter Canada. So L'Acadie, l'Acadie?!? is a timely reminder that a society can never be fully functional if one side tries to ignore the history and cultures of another side.

Les Ordres shows what happened in Quebec under the cover of the 1970 War Measures Act. As part of the War Act’s wide ranging powers, ordinary citizens were arrested without cause. The citizens were not physically tortured and eventually released but as the film shows, threats of death and murder were used to keep some prisoners in a constant state of mental agony. In a few segments it becomes apparent that some of the prison guards were on a power trip and were enacting their own version of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Les Ordres is based on a collection of interviews from some of the more than 400 arrested citizens and is essential viewing because it shows how easy it is for a democratic society to descend into a police state.

Identity, Modernity & Roots

Brault’s first fiction feature Entre la mer et l’eau douce is a fascinating film that shows the rise to fame of an ordinary young man who leaves his small isolated village to find work in booming cosmopolitan Montreal. The film’s title is explained perfectly by André Loiselle:

The title comes from the diary of Jacques Cartier, read by Alexis Tremblay in Pour la suite du monde, in which the 16th century French explorer describes beluga whales as snow-white fish that live in the river between the sea and fresh water. For Brault, however, what lives between the sea and fresh water is less the whale than the young French-Canadian man who is torn between two worlds: the sea, the past, the country and the elders, and the fresh water, the city and modernity.
-- André Loiselle, Tradition and Modernity from Montreal to Acadia and Brittany. Entre la mer et l’eau douce, Éloge du chiac, L’Acadie l’Acadie?!? and Les enfants de Néant.

In Entre la mer et l’eau douce Claude Tremblay (played by Claude Gauthier) leaves behind his Native lover in his village when he goes to Montreal, where he drifts in between jobs and affairs. Yet, he cannot forget his original love or his country roots despite swimming in a modernized city. His past is a contradiction with his present situation and that tension offers inspiration for his music. Claude’s portrayal and the film title can also refer to the tensions regarding Quebec’s nationalistic identity with the rest of Anglophone Canada and even with its native past. The fact that Claude left his Native lover behind could be taken to mean that in order to proceed ahead Quebec and thereby the rest of Canada moved away from its true origins. In the film, the question of Quebec’s independence is brought up by an Anglophone in a bar. The stranger who made the comment was drunk but his words are ones that have been echoed by many sober people across Canada over the decades. Even though Entre la mer et l’eau douce was released in 1965, questions about Quebec’s independence have never gone away and have been exploited over the decades by various politicians (both anglophones and francophones) to divide the country.

Films & Comments

Michel Brault’s films are essential viewing not only because of the fascinating Direct Cinema technique but also because they are a valuable asset to understand Canadian history. His films may be centered around Eastern Canada but one needs to hear the French Canadian perspective in order to get a better understanding of how Canada has evolved to become what it is today.

Thankfully, some of Brault’s films are available for free viewing on NFB’s website.

Note: I have only verified the films are viewable in Canada and I am not sure if they will also play in other countries.